


One Thing I Don't Believe In

by essenceofmeanin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse, Biblical References, Big Bang Challenge, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Protective Castiel, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-06
Updated: 2010-06-06
Packaged: 2019-01-07 14:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12234339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essenceofmeanin/pseuds/essenceofmeanin
Summary: Dean Winchester and Castiel don't manage to stop the apocalypse, but they do find God. In reward, God gives Dean a new beginning, a new life. He is reborn in 1979 into a normal life with his parents, John and Mary Winchester and later, his brother Sammy. Life isn't perfect - Dean is plagued by nightmares, panic attacks and memories he doesn't know are his own.





	1. Chapter 1

_"To anyone who proves victorious, and keeps working for me until the end, I will give the authority over the nations which I myself have been given by my Father, to rule them with an iron sceptre and shatter them like so many pots._

_And I will give such a person the Morning Star._

_Let anyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches."_

Rev. 2.26-29

 

 

1.

 

Dean Winchester is born on a snowy day in January of 1979 to parents John and Mary. They take Dean home to a house still decked in Christmas lights; both frazzled first-time parents, they didn't think to take the decorations down as they crossed off days til the birth date on a calender. John doesn't think of himself as a sentimental man but as he considers his wife and new son, wreathed in Christmas colors, he thinks a new life may be all they ever needed.

 

***

_"I'm gonna find God."_

_"He's either dead -- and that's the generous theory -- "_

__

_"He is out there, Dean," Castiel says, "This is not a theological issue, this is strategic. With God's help, we can win."_

__

__

_Dean wants to shake him, wants to wrap his fist around that tie and rattle those loose screws out his ears. "It's a pipe dream, Cas."_

__

***

Dean's earliest memory is from when Sammy was a baby. He was in Sammy's crib playing cars, their engines going _pbbbbbb_ as they raced around the blankets. He'd had to drag a chair to the crib to climb inside. Sammy was making gurgley baby noises like he was trying to play too.

That's not the way his mom and dad tell it. They say --

"Oh, Dean was absolutely terrified of Sammy before he was born. God, John, do you remember that?"

"I remember that he didn't sleep a wink for three whole nights when he found out Sammy was coming." Dad pokes Dean in the shoulder, winks at him. "By the end of it I was half convinced you had some sorta monster growing in there too."

"Scared of me?" Sammy looks up from his mashed potatoes, his brows furrowed. He shoots a confused glare at Dean, and Dean squirms down in his chair, embarrassed even though he doesn't know why.

Dad ruffles Sammy's hair, tells him not to worry. Mom says, "It's okay, sweetie. Big brothers sometimes have a hard time when a new baby comes along. It happens all the time. Dean was just scared that you were gonna take me away from him."

***

_Dean stands in a field of corpses as far and wide as the eye can see, thick on the ground like new snow. There's enough to walk for miles without even touching the ground. Everything's burning, the sky full of greasy black smoke. It smells like shit and meat, bitter herbs and over everything blood._

_There's a river of blood at his feet, its waves reaching out like a living thing to pull the corpses in. He realizes he's barefoot when it sucks hot at his toes; he stumbles backwards over something soft and falls. His hands hit teeth, a face, somebody's face; he scrabbles forwards on hands and knees, breath punched out of him. Back to the river, back to the only place with clear ground. It's bitterly silent._

__

_There are fingers sunk into the mud, hands breaching the waters grabbing for shore. The river boils around the body clawing to the surface and Dean flinches back before he sees blue eyes staring from a blood-covered face. Castiel chokes, a wailing newborn gasp for air and Dean scrambles to drag him from the river, his hands under the angel's arms. The river fights him the whole way, prying at his fingers and Dean can hear the slap of wings against the waters as he pulls the angel out. Castiel collapses on top of Dean, and Dean can feel the heart inside the vessel pounding against Dean's chest._

__

_Dean hears splashing, ululating cries. The noise grows and grows until it fills the whole world. He buries his face in Castiel's shoulder, damn sure that he's hit the end of his rope, that that's it, can't deal with shit all else. Castiel pulls him away, the blood spiking his hair scratching against Dean's cheek. He kisses Dean on the forehead and pulls away with his hands cupped around Dean's face. The angel's eyes are manically wide and he says Dean's name helplessly, like it's the only thing he can think of to say. He laughs, sudden and full of joy, the only time Dean's ever heard it. All around them the angels are crawling from the river of blood and beginning to sing. Dean pushes Castiel off. "Where's Sam?" He has to shout to be heard._

__

__

_Castiel shakes his head, confused. "Dean," he says, "Dean. He's coming."_

***

"What're you doin'?"

Dean looks up to find Sammy watching him. He's got a fuzzy yellow blanket pulled up over his head like a cloak and a smear of chocolate high up on one chubby cheek. Dean licks his thumb the way Mom does to scrub it away, and Sam giggles, slapping at his hands until Dean can get him clean. Dean's curled around his notepad protectively, summer-lazy in his bed into the long afternoon. Colored pencils roll beneath his elbows and knees when he moves, smearing blue and red lines helter-skelter on clean white sheets.

"I'm drawing, what's it look like?"

Sam peers over the edge of the page. Dean pulls it close to his chest, has to squash down a flash of annoyance, of crazy fear at showing Sammy what he was drawing. He relents and holds it so his brother can see. It's the man he was dreaming about last night, and he's made of sharp angles and long, long arms. Dean's got trees sketched in the background, a whole forest. Sammy pulls the paper out of his hand, turns it upside down, his face serious as he looks at what Dean's done. "What is it?" he whispers finally.

Dean tugs the pages back from his brother. The lines look strange to him already. Dean shakes his head. "I dunno, Sammy. I think he eats people." Sam nods. It makes sense to him.

Sam throws the blanket over both of their heads and the whole world goes golden around them. It's hot with both of them inside breathing, and Dean throws the corner of it over his shoulder for air. Sam smells like he's been rolling around in the grass, like sunscreen and mud. He leans close to Dean's ear. "I got somethin' to show you." He uncurls his fingers from around his treasure: it's a tiny egg, speckled and perfect. Dean has no idea how Sammy got it inside and snuck up on Dean and didn't break it. It's warm from Sammy's hands when he takes it; Dean holds it up to the light and runs one finger across the smooth surface, almost afraid to touch it. Sammy's feet push against his shins, sharp little toenails and all. Dean hands the egg back and Sam takes it gingerly. He slips out from under the blanket, giggling, and Dean can hear the slap of his feet against the ground as he runs away.

***

Dean dreams about things that haven’t happened, weird stuff that can’t ever happen. It’s not every night that he dreams about these things, but sometimes he’ll be having a regular dream, like about an abandoned barn that he can make fly, and he’ll look over and there’s Sammy. It’s not the one that he knows, it’s one that’s grown up and seems really tired. Dean looks around and they’re _in a motel, sitting on separate beds. Dean is cleaning the guns, and he’s done this a million times and doesn’t even have to look down to do it. The smell of oil is heavy in the air, mixing with the cigarette burning slowly in the bedside ashtray. When Dean takes a drag his fingers leave smudges on the filter. Sam has newspapers spread out around him, spilled over onto the floor. There are muddy footprints everywhere, bloody towels all over the bathroom. Dean feels briefly guilty about whoever has to clean up their messes._

__

__

_"Possible sighting in Greenpoint,” Sam says finally. Dean groans._

_“Ilinois? That’s a two day drive, dude, can’t we just wait for the fucker to come back?”_

_Sam skakes his head. “Not if we want to catch the Equinox. Its movements are too erratic for us to be sure it’d follow us in time. We can’t lose this chance.”_

_“Well, find me something that’s more than a possible sighting.” Sam glares at him and Dean glares back. Dean wilts first, never could keep up in a staring match with Sam when he’s got that stubborn mule thing going. He drops his eyes and sighs, reassembles the last gun and puts it away. Dean stubs out the cigarette, pulls their ashwood stakes from the duffel at his feet and starts sharpening them, says, “Guess we gotta figure out where to get lambs blood in Illinois."_

Dean doesn’t remember a time when he hasn’t had these dreams but they get longer and longer the more he has them until he’s still tired when he wakes up in the morning, from hunting wolves, or squinting at small handwriting in crumbling leather books, or from staying up all night making sure no insects escape from a burning corpse. He smells his hands at the breakfast table, trying to figure out if the lingering whiff of smoke is just in his head. Dean’s told he has an active imagination but he's not trying to make things up. Before he realizes he’s not supposed to think these dreams are real Dean tells his best friend about them, but Mikey just thinks he’s weird and laughs at him. So Dean tells Sammy these stories with a flashlight held under his chin, jumping at his brother at the part where the monster surprised Dean and threw him off a balcony just to see Sam squeal. Sam loves ghost stories.

***

_Dean turns down the music, the I-5 long, straight and boring as usual. He looks at Sam and says, "What do you think's actually gonna happen if we say yes to those bastards?"_

_Sam heaves a sigh and doesn't say anything. Dean's just about to nudge him when he says, "Fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them. Then the Devil, who betrayed them, was thrown into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." Dean whistles and Sam gives him a tight smile reflected in the window. "And I saw a great white throne, and I saw who was sitting on it. The earth and the sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide._

__

_"I saw the dead," Sam quotes tonelessly, "Both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to those things written in the books, according to what they had done._

__

_"The sea gave up the dead in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead in them. They were all judged according to their deeds.' "_

__

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_Dean watches the yellow line flow by, blinks against the headlights of semi trucks passing across the divide. Sam drums his fingers on the dashboard, says finally, "That's one version anyway."_

__

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_"Well, shit," says Dean and cranks the stereo._

__

__

***

Dean starts making story books about monsters when he is nine years old. He doodles wendigos and ghouls in English class, misses the point of making collages in art class and cuts out the articles instead. He crams made up stories about King Kong in the margins of the page, his sprawling clumsy script looping over headlines and photographs. Dad says that it must come from his side of the family since Mom can't even draw a stick figure to save her life, says he had a great-something or other was a real painter. Dean fills notebooks with pictures of snakes with people's faces on them, trees and nonsense symbols. They fill up an entire shelf on his bookcase, right under Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Discovery books, and above The Hardy Boys. He's not sure why he keeps making these things. It feels like a word that's on the tip of his tongue or a song he can barely remember, but it's not until he writes _November 6 1983 I buried my wife today_ that he thinks he might be getting close.

***

_Dean is nine years old the day that his Dad teaches him to drive. Dad had on his serious face for a few days before he sat Dean down and told him what they were gonna do. Dean had been sorta worried about whatever it was that was on Dad's mind so it's a relief when Dad says, "Dean, I'm gonna teach you something new today."_

__

_They pile into the Impala, Dean sitting shotgun and Sammy in the back with some coloring books and toys. It’s a wet day, puddles full of standing water at the side of the road. Dad drives them to the abandoned warehouses at the edge of town, old towering buildings that Dean's itching to explore but doesn't say anything about because he wants to be behind the wheel even more. Dean loves the car, doesn't mind the boredom because when they're on the road it's just the three of them against the world, reading maps and old books out loud for his dad and loud music and the wind and nothing's better than that. Dad tells him about the car, the history of Chevy Motors, what horsepower is and what a real impala looks like and Dean knows most of it but nods along anyway, grinning. They drive around for a while before Dad stops the car and says, "Scootch over, it's your turn."_

__

__

_Dad slides the bench all the way forward so Dean can reach the pedals even though it leaves Dad’s knees pretty squished in the passenger seat. They have to put some books under Dean's butt so he can see over the steering wheel, which makes Dad rub his jaw and look concerned for a few minutes. Dean feels very small with his hands at the two and ten, scared the first time when he presses the gas and the car shoots forward, wobbling down the road with Dad laughing next to him and saying, “Easy there, tiger.”_

__

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_Driving is hard; Dad keeps up a running lesson on the rules of the road, curses the lack of power steering and power brakes and for once blesses the automatic suspension and its lack of gears to grind. Turning the wheel takes both hands and both arms and Dean twice almost plows them into a building because he mistimes the turn and can’t really see past the hood anyway. Dean’s face is burning but he desperately wants to get it right. He’s not really heavy enough to work the brake, has to practically stand on it to get the car to stop._

__

__

_They keep it up for a few hours. Dean learns to steer by driving around the puddles, sometimes splashing right through them to see the look on his dad’s face. Every time Dean stops too suddenly Sammy tumbles off the backseat into the footwell, laughing like crazy. He gives up on his crayons and watches Dean and Dad in the front seat, begging for his turn too._

__

__

_Dad stops them when the first fat drops of rain hit the windshield. He’s quiet for a long time just looking at Dean. He gets this way sometimes; it makes Dean want to put a hand on his dad’s shoulder to make him feel better, so he does. Dad smiles like it kinda hurts. “Dean,” he says, “I didn’t teach you how to drive just for fun. Sometimes I might need you to drive because I can’t. I might be hurt, or I might need you to do it to keep Sammy safe. We’re gonna keep learning until I know you can do this no matter what, ok?” Dean feels like something’s stuck in his throat but nods anyway. Dad sighs. “You did good today, kiddo.” He musses Dean's hair and says, “Hey, think we can get away with some target practice in one of those warehouses?”_

__

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***

The basketball hits the wall next to his head, the metallic _crack_ echoing across the playground. Dean flinches away, yanked out of the half-dream in the pages of his notebook. His heart's a drum inside his chest. Everyone's looking at him, sitting on his backpack by himself. Girls raise their eyebrows and giggle; he feels like his face is on fire. "Hey _Winchester_ ," somebody drawls, "Can I get my _ball_ back?" The ball's nowhere near Dean, rolled halfway back to the court so Dean just stares at the kid until he stops looking, mutters something that Dean can't catch.

Dean lets out a shaky breath, shame and anger making his hands shake. He looks down at the drawing he was working on, a tall man with a sure set to his mouth. Dean rubs him out with his thumb until the man is nothing but smeared pencil sketched over old math homework.

***

_The old dock sways under him, rocking softly with the current. Dean can smell the waters of the lake heavy in the air, flush with fresh rain. Fall colored leaves clot alongside the pier. There's a fishing pole in his hands, red and white bob in the water. He's sitting on a rusty old lawn chair, tackle box at his feet, and there's a man standing next to him with blue eyes and dark hair. The water swells black beneath them when the man says, "It's not safe here."_

__

***

The nightmares come about as often as the dreams, sometimes more.

***

The first car that Dean remembers is an old Vanagon. He grows up with itchy plaid seats, endlessly twisting the knobs on the camper's busted sink. It was gone by the time he hit middle school, scrapped by his Dad when the transmission finally quit one last time. His parents get a Ford Econoline next, and it fills with grass stains from soccer practice and the smell of Sammy's juice boxes, sour and abandoned under the middle row of seats. When Dean is fourteen Dad picks up an old Nova to restore but like most mechanics, he tells Dean, he never works on his own car. Dad takes them on long rambling drives sometimes anyway, the sunny days enough of an excuse, and Dean loves the rumble of the engine and way she hogs the road like it belongs to her. Her undercarriage is rusting through, the brakes squeal, and her engine is pitched a bit too high, but just sitting on that bench seat with the wind on his face is the most peace Dean has probably ever felt. He starts drawing pictures of the highways, devotes an entire notebook to cutting out bits of old maps and postcards from the 1950's of Route 66 hotels that no longer exist. He kinda sucks at the proportions of the car, always drawing the Nova bigger and bigger, but keeps trying anyway.

***

Dean's never seen the ocean but _he knows what it's like anyway. The sharp smell of the waves, the way storms churn all the silt to the surface. Seagulls fighting over trash or something unrecognizable but recognizably dead laying in pieces on the sand. Dean never liked the ocean. He likes it less now. Sam may have gotten on that bus but Dean chased him state through state, highway after highway. When Sam left 880 for the 101 and his new home and his new life Dean kept going those last few miles to the One and to the coast, needing to see the end of it all._

__

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***

Dad's shop smells like muddy boots and motor oil and the cat litter they use to clean up gasoline. Dean slips in the side door; it's after hours and nobody's really here this time of day except his Dad, anyway. Dean's got a locker in the break room; it still has a label with his name written in his own smudgy five year old handwriting. There's some overalls in there for him so he slips those on, stashes his backpack inside, and goes to join his Dad on the floor.

Dad's under an '87 Subaru wagon. He's been bitching about this car for days: _timing slipped out of whack and now everything else is effed up and what kind of car company makes their flywheels out of plastic anyway, rubs the timing mark right off and then you can't fix a damn thing. This is why you buy American, Dean._ Dad and Dean have been working on it for a week now every day after school gets out. Dad's under the car, his voice muffled when he says, "Dean, that you?" There's another creeper next to the Subaru so Dean lays down and slides under the car too, bumping up against his Dad. He smiles by way of hi, and Dad hands Dean a wrench without saying much else. Dad outlines the engine as best he can from underneath, points out timing belt to camshaft to distributor, tells Dean like he usually does that the driver is kind of an idiot. Dean asks, "How come only idiots come to you?" and Dad laughs, knuckles dirty fingers into the top of Dean's head.

Dad asks him how school is, and Dean shrugs. They studied the Oregon Trail today, so Dean tells him about that, says, "I kept thinking about that time we got lost out on Route 84, d'you remember that? You were bitching about the weird town names, Klickitat and Mollala and Walla Walla." The names roll off his tongue like he's known them all his life, satisfying to say. Dean smiles. "We blew a tire out in the middle of nowhere and you taught me how to fix it, first time I ever changed a tire." It's a weirdly good memory of handing his Dad lug nuts and shivering in the mist, Sammy fogging up the window and drawing Dean pictures from inside the car. "We were ..." Dean hesitates, something missing from the scene, "we were meeting Mom somewhere, I think."

Dad huffs a laugh. "You still love stories, huh kiddo? Though I think you've told me more exciting ones." Dad pushes himself out from the car to grab a different head for the torque wrench. Dean stays staring up at the undercarriage, confused, the memory still so real he can practically smell the stale rain on the collar of the old jacket of Dad's he'd been wearing as he sat on the busted tire and listened for snakes in the tall grass next to the road. When Dad slides back under he says, "Be nice to travel sometime, though. You know I've barely been out of the state except for the service?" Dad shakes his head in disbelief.

***

_Dean blinks awake. The Impala is stuffy and sun-warmed, the windows closed against last night's chill. The sky is a hazy summer blue out the windshield, and when he opens the door the country quiet rushes in with the breeze. Dean sits at the edge of the backseat, digs his bare feet into the dirt. For a long minute he has no idea where he is or where they were going. He remembers dozing in the passenger seat, chin mushed into the shoulder belt, Sam asking quietly "Hey, how about here?"and mumbling back, "Yeah Sammy, here's fine."_

_Here is just about nowhere, fields gone to seed in every direction. There's an old barn a ways off in the distance, its paint stripped and pieces from the roof caved in. There are things, rabbits or something, rustling in the grass and maybe a pond somewhere nearby because he can hear frogs croaking out of sight._

__

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_Dean needs coffee. He settles for brushing his teeth, the mint stinging in the new cuts in his mouth. He spits into the grass, rinses out his mouth with a chug from the water bottle. Something aches down in the small of his back, maybe his kidneys or something. There's a bruise blooming over his jaw. He touches it gingerly with the pads of his fingers, rubbing over a scab that feels like it's hardening into scar tissue. Dean's pulling on his boots, pleasantly muzzy and thinking about nothing when he sees Sam duck under the slumped door jamb of the barn. Sam watches Dean watch Sam as he crosses the field. Dean waits until he's within hearing range to shout, "You all done composing your masterwork?"_

__

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_Sam grins, yells back, "Epic poetry. It's epic poetry."_

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_Sam stops short a few feet away to stand with his hands in his pockets. Dean squints up at him. Sam looks like he's gonna be serious so Dean says, "Where's the TP? I got some emo poetry to write myself." Sam barks a laugh but still gives him the bitchface. He stomps on Dean's feet, right in the steel toes, looking like it hurts not to smile._

__

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_Dean scrubs a hand over the back of his head. He says, "So, you ready to save the world today or what?"_

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***

Dean seeks refuge in the basement on a blisteringly hot day, the kind of day where it feels like your face is melting off and you're always thirsty no matter how much water you drink. He takes down a jug of sun tea with ice in it and lays on the concrete floor without his shirt on, shivering at the feel of the cold concrete against his sweaty back. The air's finally thin enough to breathe down here and Dean heaves a sigh of contentment, almost dozes off just like that.

He gets bored lying there watching the spiders spin their webs. The basement was his favorite hiding spot as a kid, jumping out at Sammy from behind rickety stacks of boxes or out of shadowy corners. The cement leaves his skin gritty when he stands and stretches. Been ages since he's been down here; used to be those boxes were taller than him. Dad warned him he'd probably get some growing pains as he got older but there's been nothing like that, just change so slow he barely notices it. All he wants is to be taller than his Dad, measures himself back to back sometimes when they're washing dishes after dinner and Dad just laughs, tells him _there's no hurry to get there, son_. All Sammy wants is to be taller than them both.

Dean rifles through open boxes of old photographs, leafing through crumbling albums of old pictures glued to black paper. Grandma and Grandpa in front of their first house, apple trees all around them. Grandpa died in the war, Grandma in a car accident right after Dean was born. Dean wonders if he'd feel any connection to the people in these pictures if he'd actually met them: Winchesters all the way back to the homesteading days, strangers.

There's a box with his name on it in his Mom's handwriting. He breathes in the waxy smell of old crayons when he opens it, full of drawings and tests and macaroni art with DEAN FIRST GRADE, or DEAN THIRD GRADE printed in block letters across the top. Dry pasta rattles at the bottom under all the papers. One says, _My best frend in the wole world is My brother SAMMy. He is Little._ There's two stick figures below the words, and Dean laughs to see that they're holding hands. Sam's a stubborn little cuss but Dean still likes him better than most people.

At the bottom of the box there's a paper with MY CAR taking up the top half of the page and a credible highway looping around the borders, crooked yellow lines wandering in and out of it. There's a blobby car in the middle, headlights carefully traced around the black crayon. He'd colored so hard that the paper is worn thin and shiny in spots. Beneath the car are the letters KAZ Y25, sloping downward towards the bottom of the paper and Dean traces each one, not sure what they mean. He tucks it into his pocket, folded carefully so that it doesn't rip.

He stays down there until the sun sets and Mom calls him up for dinner. It's cooler up there than it was but every stair he climbs feels like the heat is pressing him harder and harder downward, like a giant hand. They eat leftover meatloaf at the dining room table, none of them really paying much attention to each other. Dad's working late. Mom's sorting through bills and Sammy's doing homework. Dean picks at his food, watches the fan oscillate, the way Mom's hair lifts and then settles against her forehead as it passes. She doesn't seem to notice.

***

_Dean wakes up on his stomach on the ground, wind howling over his head. He's on his feet in seconds but there's nothing for miles around but ratty sagebrush and sand dunes. And Castiel, staring out at the desert like Dean's not even there._

_"What the -- what the fuck," Dean's teeth chatter; he's got nothing on but boxers and a tshirt. The wind is freezing; gravel stings the back of his legs and his feet are turning numb from the chill. "Cas, where are we?"_

__

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_"Khongoryn Els," Castiel says, "What you know as the Gobi. I have ..." Castiel takes a breath, audible over the storm. "I needed to speak to you," he says softly. He turns toward Dean, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion at the dumbfounded look on Dean's face._

__

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_Dean shakes his head. "Man, you couldn't just drunk dial me?" He sighs. "All right, but gimme your goddamn coat, it's fucking cold here." He squints at Castiel. "Did you say the Gobi Desert?"_

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_Castiel shrugs off his coat and hands it over, his attention back to where the sand curls along the dunes. Dean wraps it around his shoulders, hunkers down to try and stay warm. The adrenaline is fading and he feels like he should be pissed off but he's too damn tired. The jacket smells like a person, is warm from Castiel's body heat and it surprises him. Dean didn't know he had any. They watch pebbles roll down the hills, chasing nothing._

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_"If I could only look for Him in every grain of sand," Castiel says finally._

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_"God's in a grain of sand?" Dean picks up a handful, tosses it to the sky._

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_Cas smiles hopelessly. "He's everywhere."_

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	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He starts to take it for granted, always feeling like someone's watching.

2.

 

High school comes as a shock to the system, hallways buzzing with halogen lamps and shrieking laughter; the teacher's whistle piercing through the thud of basketballs and the shoes squeaking against polished wood in the gym. Dean is late his second day of PE because he locked himself shaking in the bathrooms off the communal locker room, and even if there had been anybody around he couldn't have explained why his heart was beating a hundred times a minute. It was just _gym_ for gods sake, just English class, just lunch, just people, just high school.

Dean takes his lunch out behind the Future Farmers of America portable; it smells like sheep back there but also like the gardens they plant, and most importantly there's nobody around. Ninth grade passes in a blur of keeping quiet as Dean pretty much quits talking, and he never talked all that much to begin with. If life was a movie Dean might've been the secret-genius freak of the school, given swirlies or shoved into lockers on a daily basis. But life's not like that; no one seems to really notice him and so Dean relaxes by inches.

***

His birthday present when he turns fifteen is driving lessons. Mom worries about the snow on the roads so Dad takes him to a well-plowed parking lot; they drive in slow loops and Dad shows him how to change gears, how to parallel park, and finally, how to do donuts.

Dean's a natural, loves that satisfying _clunk_ from second to third and takes to it like he's been driving for years. His Dad looks happy in the passenger seat, proud of how well Dean is doing. The wisps of a rainy day memory fades in the face of his Dad's smile and Dean feels proud too. They keep at it until the day fades into night and snow arrives in little flurries. Dean begs to drive home but his dad just laughs, _fat chance_ , and takes the wheel back. Dean can't keep the grin off his face the whole drive home, the car warm and Boston playing on the radio.

Dad says, "Pretty soon you'll be taking girls out in a car of your own, huh?" He elbows Dean, winking.

Dean laughs, embarrassed. The school's decked out in red and pink for the Valentines Dance in a couple of weeks; Dean gets scared every time he walks down the hallways filled with knots of giggling girls. Everybody looks happy, like it's easy for them, but girls feel _impossible_ to Dean. "Dad, I suck at girls," Dean says, and it feels good to finally admit it to someone.

Dad _hmmms_ , nods his head in sympathy along with the beat of the music. He claps a hand on Dean's shoulder when they pull into the driveway. Dean can see his mom in the bright kitchen, steam from dinner clouding the edges of the window and Sammy setting the table behind her. Dad says, "Kiddo, every teenage boy sucks at girls. Hell, sometimes even grown men suck at girls." They jog through the snow to get inside, slipping and sliding across the driveway. Their breaths stream through the freezing air. In the house it's sticky and hot, tumbling out of their winter jackets and knocking snow off their boots; Dean nearly falls over trying to get his off. Dad pushes him into the wall, laughing, and he tells Dean not to worry. "It gets easier," he says.

***

_Dad's right, it does get easier. Not that he ever felt sorry for the marks, that wasn't the problem._

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_Dean flubs the first practice run playing pool for cash; maybe his acting wasn't good enough but the guy spooked, went back to his friends. The second time, Dean gets it exactly right. He keeps that dumb-shit smile on his face, looks the guy right in the eye and even slaps him on the back when he makes a good shot. Dean lets him sink four balls right off the break on their second game, ups the ante with the man's new-found confidence and then proceeds to run the table. Wasn't hard once the guy cleared the board so nicely but Dean pretends to be amazed at the lucky shots he's making. He buys a round at the bar with his flush of cash and it feels like the closest thing to a friend he's made in ages._

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_Dean loves pool and it doesn't take him long to figure out all of the advantages here. For once it's kinda fun when people underestimate him -- been happening all his life so why shouldn't he get paid doing it? Gives him a good night out with his Dad and Dean can kinda keep an eye on him. It makes Dean feel better to be there to get his back, even though Dad doesn't get sloppy all that often anymore. It's also the best excuse to get the hell out of the motel room or apartment or whatever when Sammy's got his bitchface on, just out the door saying 'Hey Sammy, you wanna eat next week? See ya in the morning.'_

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***

Dean makes his first real friend that year. Sammy's off to summer camp, and the house is empty and silent while Mom and Dad are at work. Dean's sick of it by the end of the first week of vacation. He's on the front lawn watching the ants boil over the crumbs of his PB&J, comic books spread out around him when Matt plops down next to him without preamble.

"I'm staying across the street," he says, and points right to the haunted house on the block. The old lady that all the neighborhood kids had grown up believing to be a witch is Matt's grandma, and, "She says I should make some friends otherwise I'm gonna drive her insane, and I like comic books too so, um. Let's hang out." He smiles at Dean, more shy than the whole speech would let Dean believe, and holds out a hand.

"I thought she already was insane," Dean says, and takes it.

Dean's a little dubious that Matt's isn't just going to find someone cooler to hang out with and leave Dean and his colored pencils and old books behind, but he shows up just about every day after breakfast with a grin and a plan. They spend a day exploring Matt's house from top to bottom, and Dean tells him the spook stories about it, how _ninety years ago some kid was murdered in this room, and his ghost haunts the house to this very day._ They set up a Ouija Board in the attic but nothing happens, just like all the other times Dean has tried. Dean doesn't tell him about the whole _your grandma is a witch_ thing.

They ramble along the railroad tracks on a windy day, hopping onto slow moving trains. Dean tumbles off one laughing hard enough to screw up the landing entirely and spills across the gravel. He blows out both knees of his jeans and skins his hands bloody against the rocks. His head doesn't land too far away from where the great wheels are slowly turning, and Mom's gonna kill him when she sees his pants, but it may be the best day he's ever had. Matt laughs his ass off at Dean, _oh man you shoulda seen yourself._

Matt has dark hair and blue eyes, and he's from New Mexico. Dean's Mom and Dad try not to show their surprise when Dean brings his first friend home for dinner since probably elementary school. They mostly fail so Dean spends the meal rolling his eyes at his parents. They watch _Ace Ventura: Pet Detective_ afterward and Matt falls asleep against Dean's shoulder. Dean spends the rest of the movie frozen, trying not to breathe too deeply. He feels happy and panicked at the same time, amazed at how warm another person can be.

Dean steals a bottle of whiskey from the supermarket in early August; he's never stolen anything before so he's kind of amazed at how easy it is. They take it down to the creek and walk for miles, drinking straight from the bottle. Matt's hand is damp when Dean takes the bottle, from the heat and the green summer sun all around them. When they stop to rest they haven't seen another person for hours. They dangle their feet in the cold creek water and throw rocks at the crawdads. Dean's reeling with the whiskey and the way their knees are touching, and when he leans over to kiss Matt his whole world narrows down to just bright light. Matt tastes like whiskey and water and Dean can feel him smiling. Dean wants to laugh; he's probably blushing like crazy. Dean learns the shape of Matt's mouth and they kiss by the water until their lips are stung and sensitive and the sun has set, the day endless like any summer afternoon.

Matt leaves for New Mexico two weeks later, back to school and home and family. Dean doesn't go to the airport to see him leave. He can't remember ever saying goodbye to someone before, doesn't know where the wash of deja vu comes from that makes his stomach sour with being left behind.

***

_Dean dreams about death every night for six weeks. He dreams of rain, so solid and endless that it drowns entire cities, corpses swept bloated downriver to terrify those who had been passed over by the initial destruction. Everyone said they couldn't remember a year so bad as this one, but they say that every year as the preachers bluster about hellfire and the liberals quake about global warming. Dean knows different, always did, and he watches for the signs as they come. A cholera epidemic in the Sudan spreads to Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Italy. An earthquake in Thailand levels apartment buildings and offices and slaughters tens of thousands in the densely populated cities. America, usually untouched, panics as the middle of the country turns into another Dust Bowl and their breadbasket crumbles._

_They sit in a dark motel room and Sam watches the newscasts; Dean watches the light from the tv flickering across his face. He hands a beer to Castiel, who is reading scrolls by candle on a wobbly, cigarette-stained table. Cas nods in thanks and drinks deeply. His trench coat is draped across the back of his chair and Dean thinks about 2014, about how Cas looks a bit more human every day. Dean wonders how worried he should be about his angel. He wonders about his brother, who turns down the beer and sits watching death tolls rise like he knows exactly how bad this is gonna get._

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***

Sometimes, Dean sees things out of the corner of his eye. A light slices through his room, slides over the walls and ceiling like the headlights of a passing car but he never hears any drive by. His chair is warm when he sits down like someone just left it. A breath of air against his cheek in a closed room.

He starts to take for it granted, always feeling like someone's watching.

***

"Dean?"

Sam pokes his head into Dean's room. His shoulder's propped fake casually against the doorjamb but it mainly just looks awkward, like he's trying to hide whatever's in his arms behind the door. Dean's doing nothing and doesn't mind the break from it, even though the look on Sam's face doesn't tell him anything good. Dean just hopes it's not like the last time when he had to explain to Sam that _no, possums don't make good pets and I don't care how many you have trapped in the trash can._ "What is it, short stack?"

Sam smiles, embarrassed, and says, "Can you help me with my homework?"

Turns out Sam's cradling _all_ of his books behind that door, so when Dean says yes it's an investment of his whole night, or close enough. Probably had that awkward look on his face because he knew Dean would say no if he'd've known. Sam's studying all kinds of things that Dean vaguely remembers from his sixth grade: Spanish, building bibliographies, the Roman Empire, the history of Kansas and something that Sam calls seriously 'social responsibility'.

Dean's lousy at that last one but remembers everything about the history of whatever, so they go through the tests in the back of the textbooks and Dean quizzes Sam about dates and places, names and faces. They spread out the textbooks all over Dean's floor, and break out Dean's colored pencils to make up pictures and mnemonics of _hermano_ and _bibliotecha, coche_ and _carraterre_. Dean looks at his brother sprawled across the carpet, chewing on a pen; Sam's all elbows and fragile shoulder blades.

Dean's vision blurs, doubling; _they're in a motel room, Dean sitting on the floor with his back against one of the queen beds. There's a pen in his hand and he's grading Sam's practice quiz. Sam's coloring the pieces of a First Thanksgiving diorama made with a shoebox scrounged from a trash can, his tongue sticking out in concentration, all elbows._

Dean blinks and it's gone. He shakes the moldy smell of the motel sheets out of his head like a dog shakes water from its ears, and Sam looks at him expectantly. Dean swallows it down, says, "All right, tell me all about space travel."

Sam babbles cheerfully about Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, the race for space and monkeys shot into orbit. He pulls his science textbook over to show Dean pictures, scooting next to his brother to point out who's who in group shots.

Sam knows all the answers to every question Dean asks. Dean kinda wonders why Sam wants his help at all right up until Mom calls Sam's bedtime. They pack up his books and drawings and homework and Sam gives Dean a hug before he goes to take his shower and asks if they can study again tomorrow night. Dean tells him yes.

***

The first time Dean dreams about his mothers death he wakes with his nose bleeding all over the pillows and sheets. He stumbles down the hallway to the bathroom, blood dripping through his fingers. His heart's pounding and the floor is cold under his butt but he sits there for what feels like hours with toilet paper pressed to his nose, stays until the blood's stopped. He stares at the wall until his mind is filled with it and nothing else. 

The hallway is splattered with blood, dotting the carpet in an uneasy trail to his room. Dean is down on his knees with a towel soaked in cold water and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide without a thought, blotting at the stains. He remembers _the heat, how it felt like somebody's hand across his face. He was in the hallway, and his Dad pressed Sammy into his arms and told him, told him outside, fast as you can. The grass is cold and wet under his bare feet and he has to pee but he waits for his Daddy because he said outside but he didn't say anything else for after Dean and Sammy got there. Dean didn't ask where his Mommy was because the way Daddy hugged them both to his chest and buried his face in Dean's hair and the look in his eyes told him. They sat on the trunk of their car, the air sparkling with the spray from the firemen's hoses, and watched their house burn._

His hands are shaking. He presses hard on the carpet, the cold water soaking through the towel. It's the middle of the night and the house is quiet. Dean stares at Sammy's door, at his parents' down the hall but they're all asleep. Nobody's gonna wake up and come check on him like when he had all those nightmares as a kid. He feels selfish for wanting someone to tell him it's okay, wants to knock on either door to be comforted but can't make himself do it. 

Dean blunders down the stairs, half falling with his hand on the rail. It's cold outside, the breath of snow in the night and his toes go numb almost instantly. He tucks his hands into his armpits to keep warm. The house isn't on fire, nothing's moving in the dark. The silence is absolute, ringing in his ears. Dean gulps air down like it's water but it doesn't help. His throat feels scorched with smoke, he's freezing and he feels crazy standing outside on his lawn in the middle of the night with blood still under his fingernails.

_Water_ , he thinks, but when he snaps on the kitchen light he sees _Sammy, he's up against the wall and he looks freaked but he's okay. There are tears in his eyes and when Dean cocks the shotgun at the spirit he says don't -- don't shoot; I know who it is. I can see her now._

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_The flames die and his mother says she's sorry._

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It surprises even him, but that's the first night Dean thinks to wonder if he's losing his mind 

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***

"Dean?

"Mister Winchester.

"Whenever you decide to join us, I asked you about the Compromise of 1850...

"Dean."

Dean shakes his head hard, like he could shake this feeling right out his ears. It's hard to breathe, feels like someone's got a vise on his chest and they're squeezing steadily until there's no air left. His fingers are numb where they're gripping his pencil, where he was dutifully taking notes until...

_Panic attack_ , and the idea forms like a whisper in his mind, _need to get somewhere safe_. "I..." he tries, "I don't feel good." Dean lurches out of his seat and out the door, hardly noticing the pissed look on Ms. Randolph's face. He bangs into the row of lockers, his shoulder jammed up against the locks . It starts to throb like someone shot him, and then he can't get that thought out of his head, _the first time it happened, how the pain was so much bigger than he'd ever imagined. His whole world narrowed down to his leg and his dad was just a breath in his ear saying shitshit and Dean, I said GET DOWN._

Dean makes it to the bathroom. He slams the stall door shut and just slides down the wall. His breath is coming in sobs. He didn't sleep but two hours last night and the night before, scared of what else his brain might come up with and it's been like walking through molasses and nothing's felt real but _this_. A sucker punch out of nowhere is what this is. Dean's got enough left in him to think, _this is fucked up._

He does his breathing exercises, in-out, slowly. By the time the shaking stops there are dried tear tracks on his face that he doesn't remember crying and snot coming out his nose. Dean feels disgusted with himself, confused and pissed off. He punches the metal wall, once; he startles at the _bang_ echoing through the tile room and it gets him nowhere but sore knuckles.

He leaves; can't stomach going back to History. He spares a thought to wonder about his backpack, but they'll probably just throw it in the lost and found or something and hand him a detention for his trouble. Dean sneaks past the hall monitors and out the front door easy as you please. It's freezing outside so Dean walks double-time with his hands shoved in his pockets, wishes he'd thought to grab his winter jacket slung over the back of his chair.

His chest hurts. Dean listens to the wind whistling through bare branches and thinks about how he's never had breathing exercises before. He's never had PT as the sun rose or competitions with Sam to see who could disassemble and reassemble a handgun the fastest. His fingers twitch with the thought but Dean's never touched a gun in his life.

***

_"Man, I fucking hate hospitals." Dean glares at the IV hanging from the towel rack, mainly so he doesn't have at look at Sam sliding the needle into the vein. Sam keeps a thumb across the needle and Dean slaps the medical tape into his outstretched hand without being asked. Sam eyeballs his work, checks the fluid rate. He sits heavily on the toilet seat._

_"Yeah, well, they do have their uses."_

_Dean drums his fingers against the edge of his taped up thigh. "If you'd just practice putting in stitches like I told you to --"_

_"What, Dean? Practice like with Dad?" Sam sneers._

_"Sam -- wouldya mind --"_

_"Are you even listening to yourself -- "_

_"Hey, can we not do this while I'm on Vicodin? You know that stuff makes me want to hurl as it is and this ain't helping --"_

It itches. Dean wakes up and it _itches_ ; for a moment he can see a whole lifetime etched out in a map of white lines on his skin. He blinks and it's gone but the feeling of the scars remain.

He tries to tell himself over the next few weeks that scars don't have nerve endings even when they're real but it's like the itch of a phantom limb the way it drives him crazy. He _knows_ they're not real even when he scratches raw spots into his left shoulder or the long line that starts under one nipple and ends over the other. The feeling is bone deep the way it's settled into his skin, inescapable. Dean skips PE, afraid of what the teacher or the other kids might think and ashamed of everything.

***

_Dean pads downstairs in his socks, arms full of books from Bobby's actual official library and not just the shit he has stacked around his house. Sam told him one summer day as a kid that he'd counted as many of Bobby's books as he could and he'd come up with 5,000 of 'em just on the ground floor. Dean doesn't know how he keeps them all straight, just follows orders when Bobby says 'Upstairs closet, third shelf down and eight from the left' or 'On top of the busted radio. The red busted radio and quit yer ribbin', boy.' Bobby used to get them himself, but since he doesn't manage stairs so well these days it's usually Sammy doing the reading while Dean does the fetching._

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_Dean's carrying enough that he can't really see where he's going, but he could find his way around Bobby's house blind so it doesn't really matter anyway. So he toes his way down the stairs, bumps into that chair in Bobby's living room that he always bumps into. When he gets to the kitchen Bobby's at the table squinting at his chess set, Cas across from him with a half-empty beer and an equally serious expression on his face. They're so wrapped up in the game that nobody even notices him until Dean awkwardly clears his throat._

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_"What're you doin' here?"_

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_ >Bobby spares a glance for Dean before sliding his castle ponderously across the board. "Castiel brought me a book," he says like it's some kind of answer. Castiel's brow furrows and he nods slightly. He hasn't looked at Dean standing in the doorway like an idiot._

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_Dean frowns and mutters, "I brought you books," feeling like a kid for some goddamn reason. He dumps them unceremoniously on the table next to Bobby and plops himself down to watch. He makes it five minutes of drumming his fingers on the table, sucking down a beer of his own before he snaps. "Aren't we supposed to be working? Y'know, Apocalypse Now in hi-def surround sound in our near future and all?"_

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_Bobby grunts, "We're takin' a break," and skips a knight over the squares to knock down Cas' queen. "Check."_

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_"The hour of the lord will come like a thief in the night, Dean, and not even the angels know that day or hour." Castiel lifts a pawn, his smile little more than a facial tic but his eyes are warm on Dean's when he sets it down to corner Bobby's king. "Checkmate."_

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_Dean wants to laugh at the look on Bobby's face, maybe because not much is really funny these days and you gotta smoke 'em if you've got 'em. Cas' eyes are still on his like he knows just the feeling._

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_Bobby glares at them both and says, "Well ain't you just a goddamn ray of sunshine."_

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	3. One Thing I Don't Believe In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're gettin' to the age where you need a car, right Dean?

3.

 

_The thing that killed him, really killed him about what happened in that stupid all-you-can-eat diner wasn't the shit that Famine said about him or the way Cas was on his knees licking raw meat off his fingers and how they were both completely, totally useless. It was the way Sam didn't even wipe the blood off his face before coming after them, like a red cape to goad the bull or a flag hoisted high in the air. Like he wanted them all to know what they were dealing with._

Dean didn't need it; he knew what Sam had done the minute he saw him.

***

Dean's stirring the veggies for dinner when Dad turns from where he's tasting the stew and says, "So, what's been going on with you lately, kiddo?"

Dad looks at him expectantly. Dean chews on his bottom lip, looks over at where Sammy is doing homework at the kitchen table. Dean shrugs, one shoulder rolling up and down like it's just as embarrassed as he is. "Just -- school and stuff..." Dean tries. "Been havin' a hard time with..." he waves a hand, aimlessly, "Y'know."

"Yeah, son, I do know." Dad crosses his arms, leans against the stove. "I've had two phone calls in two weeks from the truancy people at your school. You're in danger of failing your English class. Your mom says you barely talk to her anymore. Is it some girl?"

Dean huffs a laugh. "No, Dad."

"What's going on, then?" Dean can feel the look Dad's leveling at him, straight and steady and worried. Dean leans back too, against his Dad, and Dad obligingly wraps an arm around Dean's shoulders. "Dean, you know you can talk to me about anything."

"I know," Dean lies softly. He _wants_ to. The soles of his feet have been aching in thin sharp lines, like he'd walked barefoot through glass. He'd been at the library all afternoon reading about schizophrenia. It feels too big to talk about; the words feel like they get stuck in his throat and he doesn't know where to even start. He's quiet long enough that his Dad sighs, squeezes Dean's shoulder briefly before pulling back to look him in the face.

"Tell ya what, Dean. Guy down at my shop wants to sell this old car of his for a song; it's been under a tarp in his garage for fifteen years but supposedly it still runs." Dad quirks his eyebrows. "You're gettin' to the age where you need a car, right Dean?"

Dean grins, wide and honest. "Really?"

"Sure," Dad says. "She needs a lot of work, don't get me wrong. You'll have to get your grades up. No more ditching school. And you pay for parts yourself. But yeah, Dean. Come down to the shop tomorrow and we can check her out together, see what you think."

Dean's still a few inches shorter than his Dad, and now that he's getting older he doesn't know if he'll ever actually catch up. When Dad pulls him into a hug it's the first time in years that it doesn't matter, that it feels good to still be a kid. Something eases in his chest and Dean lets out a long, shaky breath. Dad chuckles. "And Dean, do me a favor and buy some flowers or something for your mom, ok?"

***

_When Dean sees the brand-spanking-new neon sign on top of what used to be one of his favorite greasy spoons he stops dead in his tracks and swears with his fist to the sky. Sam plows right into him from behind, as usual not watching where he was going. He spins, arms wheeling in the air and Dean shoves him back._

_They're in Washington, chasing leads on a demonic cult that'll probably turn out be a bunch of metal heads and not the hotline to Hell they were looking for. Dean's never been crazy about the Pacific Northwest, too much meth and hipsters, too much rain, but dammned if they didn't make a good breakfast at this place downtown so Dean'd just shrugged and said, "Olympia, huh?" when Sam told him where they were going. When Cas called wanting to meet them, Dean knew just the place -- only to find it turned into a chain restaurant sometime in the decade or so since he'd been in town. Sam can talk about the homogeneous WalMartization of the cultural landscape all he wants -- personally Dean likes the wide availability of quality new socks at prices he can afford -- but it really pisses Dean off, really pisses him off, when it fucks up his breakfast plans._

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_So he glares at the fancy new decorations until Sam spots Cas sitting at a table with three beers in front of him. They slide into the booth seat across from him. Castiel nods at them gravely, says, "I ordered you drinks," with his usual keen sense of the obvious._

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_"It's nine in the morning, Cas," Sam says. Castiel slides his pint from hand to hand across the table._

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_"I thought you might need them after we talk. Lucifer has raised Pestilence."_

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_"What? How -- we didn't have any warning at all -- " Sam leans almost across the table, his face red and palms flat on the gleaming wood. Dean picks up his beer, drains half in a gulp. Cas is right. It's a good time for a drink._

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***

"So, I've taken her a few times around the block. Here's what I can tell so far:

"She rattles when she's in second gear. The idle keeps changing on me and the brakes squeal a bit. The alternator light is on but I couldn't see anything wrong with the it so we'll have to dig around to find out what's going on with that. Not usually the alternator anyway; if I had a dollar for everybody who tried tellin' me it was I'd be a damn millionaire. Probably need to replace the battery anyway, though."

"It smells like someone peed in here," Sam interjects from the back seat.

Dad smiles. "We'll need new seats, too. See how the leather is cracked here," he points," and here. There's minimal rust damage, which is good, but a lot of little things need to be replaced and polished up. Sanded down."

Dean slides a hand along the planes of the car, faded blue paint flaking away under his fingers. "She needs a new coat of paint." The car sits with an attitude, huge and powerful even halfway to the junkyard. She's the kind of car that'll make people lock their doors when it pulls up next to them at a stoplight. Dean's grinning; it takes him a minute to realize it and he can't seem to keep it off his face. He leans inside, strokes the sun-bleached leather dashboard. Sammy's right, it does smell funky but that'll go away with some Armor-all and fresh air. The door creaks when he opens it, and he settles down in the drivers seat like it was made for him. Dean takes a deep breath before wrapping his fingers around the steering wheel. He pictures the open road, roaring down the highways with no music but the roar of the engine. The wind on his face.

Dad leans down, rests an arm along the open window. "She's got a 427 cubic inch engine, 385 horsepower." He snakes an arm through the steering wheel, taps the gauges. Dad grins at Dean. "This baby'll push a hundred in less than thirty seconds on a straightaway. Not that you're ever allowed to tell your mom I told you that."

Sam flops long arms over the bench seat, crowds up next to Dean. "I wanna learn how to drive," he whines. Dean ruffles his brother's hair and pushes him back into his seat, laughing. Dad turns away to rummage in his roll cart. He comes back with a Chilton's manual, Christmas bow stuck to the cover. It says _Chevrolet Impala 1967._

Dad says, "So what do you think?"

***

_It takes Dean a few minutes of staring at Bobby's back door, at the faded beer bottles ringing the old couch on the porch, before he finally just takes a deep breath and heads inside. Sun's been gone a few hours now and it's taken him this long to face facts that he can't stay out in the junkyard forever._

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_Sam's nowhere to be seen but there's fresh dishes piled in the sink and evidence of him being around -- a laptop cord on the table, his jacket slung over the chair. Dean slinks into the den. Bobby's sitting with an ancient tv tray in front of him, a plate and a few empties on it. There's a similar tray in front of the armchair next to him so Dean takes the unspoken invitation and sits down. There's a few fingers of whiskey in an old jam jar and a beer that's warm enough to indicate he was supposed to be in here a while ago._

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_"Food's in the fridge," Bobby says. "After you clean up, naturally."_

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_Dean takes a look at his hands, oil grimed under his fingernails and tracked up his arm in long streaks, mixed with the dust of Bobby's yard. There's a clean diamond in the crook of his elbow where he sweated the dirt away and a stinging cut across his knuckles that'll sluggishly leak blood if he flexes his fingers. He cracks the beer open, not really in the mood to eat. He gags a bit as it goes down but even warm it's the best thing he's done all day. He drinks half of it down before pausing for breath. Bobby shakes his head and turns back to the tv._

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_He's watching The Empire Strikes Back instead of the earthquake reports they've all been glued to this last week. Dean's interested until he figures out that Leia and that bikini are long gone -- everybody's already running around Cloud City like chickens with their heads cut off. Dean finishes his beer, starts in on the whiskey. Star Wars was always Sam's thing; watching it now makes Dean itchy, like Sam's in the room giving him those guilty eyes._

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_Bobby opens his mouth right when Dean's about to get up. He says, "You remember when I took you guys to see these in the theatre?"_

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_"The, uh... twenty year anniversary, right?"_

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_Bobby nods, salutes Dean with his glass. He's loose enough that he's probably been here a while too, maybe watched the first one too. "Your brother was such a pain in my ass that day."_

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_Dean smiles at that one even though he doesn't have much in the way of fond memories from that summer. Sam'd wanted to be Luke Skywalker, of course, even if he was too old by then to actually come out and say it. He'd said that Bobby was the Chewbacca to Dad's Han Solo. To Dean's mind that would've been a compliment most any other day but since Han'd been stupid enough to get caught he didn't think Sam'd meant it that way. Sam was just being a brat; Bobby's had been a pit stop in a round trip from Billings to Waterloo to pick up Dad from where he'd gone to ground in some motel room. Dean'd fallen asleep in the theatre and dreamed about those yellow lines. Sam bitched the whole way there and back, only shut it when Dad woke up from the back seat and bitched back._

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_Dean finishes the movie for the first time with Bobby, passing the whiskey back and forth. Man always knows too much, but Dean's grateful for it._

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***

Dean wants that car so badly he can taste it. He stops by Dad's shop every day after school that he can, sitting in the drivers seat and making lists of everything that needs fixing. He doodles car parts, wrenches and wheels, in the margins of his homework. Dean works out a deal with Dad -- he has to come in a couple of days a week and work on a car other than his new baby, and of course, he has to pay for parts himself. Dean reads through catalogs and newspaper ads and starts adding things up. He knows that, even with the wholesale prices the shop can get him for most things, this isn't gonna be cheap. Dad tells him that nothing worth it ever is.

So Dean gets his first real, taxpaying job bussing tables at a diner downtown. The manager likes his reasons for needing the paycheck but still looks him up and down twice before saying yes because Dean is wiry even for sixteen but what the hell, really. He looks like a good kid, John Winchester's boy does. Dean fills out the W-2 and underage work permits at the kitchen table with his Mom helping. He laughs the whole time but can't really explain why he it's so funny.

***

_The sirens start at 4:30 in the morning three days before Easter. Dean's mainly been sleeping with his shoes on for a couple of years by now but Sam's shirtless and barefoot when they stumble angry and half-awake out of their room to find out what the fuck is going on._

_"Absolutely nothing," the night manager says to the other people clustered in the parking lot in their pajamas. It's almost too loud to hear him, the tornado warning a long, grating whine echoing across the pavement. There're kids crying outside their rooms, fists pressed to their ears. "Go back to bed," the man tells them. "The police say they'll have this taken care of immediately."_

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_It doesn't stop. Dean puts earplugs in his ears and still can't sleep. The noise is unending, inescapable; Sam rubs his temples until Dean's worried he's gonna tunnel right through to his brain. They turn on the news to find out it's not just them -- it's the tsunami warnings in Hawaii; every car alarm in Los Angeles, every fire alarm in Rhode Island, hell, even the anthrax alerts in Washington DC went off._

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_By the next afternoon techs are cutting power lines out of desperation, but the noise just goes on and on. Dean drives them miles out into the corn fields in an attempt to get some quiet. They sleep fitfully, startling awake every few minutes at the far off sound of sirens._

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_Nobody's dying but by the third day without rest, the nation starts to collectively lose its shit. Sporadic riots break out in LA, New York, even Wichita. Everybody deafened, afraid. Evangelicals shout on TV about the rising of the Lord, sweat pouring down their faces. They proclaim it an Easter warning of imminent Rapture._

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_"You think the Rapture's real?" Dean yells._

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_"Well," Sam smirks, "If it is, I'm gonna take your car."_

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_Dean throws the remote at him and rolls his eyes. Cas isn't answering his phone, no way to ask the experts what's going on and Dean's trying not to be nervous about that. He'd never admit it but he checks his phone over and over like some teenage girl for worrying about the angel, keeps thinking he feels it vibrating in his pocket. He doesn't need this shit, like he wasn't already in a bad mood._

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_The sirens stop as suddenly as they started two days past Easter; five days of riots, suicides, and sleeplessness. The silence is deafening; people wander weeping into the roads like they're in a damn movie or something, faces lifted to the sky. Even Dean doesn't turn on the radio for a day or two after that._

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_Dean scowls at everybody they meet even though people are as happy as if someone put Prozac in the water supply. He doesn't relax until he gets a text message from Cas a week after the whole thing started, even though all it says is 'What?' which isn't a goddamn answer at all._

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***

Having a job isn't so bad. Bussing tables is gross, sure -- he had to clean up baby vomit his third day -- but Dean's always had a strong stomach so it doesn't bother him. He's never been on a team before. It takes him a month or so to realize that's what's going on -- that when one of the chefs yells, 'hey asshole,' they're not actually trying to pick a fight.

Town like Lawrence, there's a lot of regulars -- old couples who've been coming in since the place was opened or the same group of college kids on a hangover brunch every Sunday, things like that. This guy starts coming in Dean's third week working there, just about every day. Always orders the same thing: coffee, black and a burger, medium rare. Pickles, lettuce, onions and tomato stay on the plate. Guy loves his ketchup, though, leaves sticky fingered proof in crumpled napkins that Dean finds littering the table. He doesn't really talk to anyone; Dean never usually sees him come in, only knows he's there when he picks up the plate and there're those blue eyes looking right through him. Dean's not sure he likes the guy even though he secretly agrees with the waitresses that he's pretty hot; something about him makes Dean want to run for the hills.

***

Dean has a girlfriend for two weeks and five days. She's in his English class, and her name is Megan. They're in the same group for the final project. Dean's never really talked to her so it's a surprise when she follows him out after lunch bell laughing about something Mr. Graham said. "Mind if I eat with you?" she asks, her hand on his arm. "I wanted to go over some stuff with you about the presentation."

Dad's right -- girls _do_ get easier, especially when they're doing all the work. They go see a movie after school the next day. It's only _Starship Troopers_ so Dean's still pretty mystified about what's going on until she leans over during the shower scene and kisses him. That's the last part of the movie he'll remember, the rest of it lost in the taste of her lipstick, the softness of her belly when he brushes the tips of his fingers under her tank top. He hasn't been kissed since Matt, had almost forgotten the way someone else's touch drowned just about everything out.

Megan's everywhere for the next two weeks and four days, in his classes and all over his skin. She meets him after school and they make out on the hood of her car in the spring sunshine until Dean's late meeting his Dad at the shop. Dad looks pissed until he spots the hickey on Dean's neck and raises his eyebrow. Dean rolls his eyes and rubs a hand over it self consciously, doesn't miss his Dad trying hide his grin as he turns away.

"They've, uh," Dad starts when they're both comfortably elbow deep into the Fairlane's guts. "They've given you guys the sex talk at school, right? Or should I be doing that now?"

"You're off the hook, health class was last year," Dean says, tapping the end of a screwdriver against the vice grips trying to loosen a stubborn bolt. "Dad, when're you gonna get pneumatic tools?"

"Don't change the subject, kiddo. And use protection." Dad laughs, sounding relieved. "So what's her name?"

Megan calls him, too, and Sam rolls his eyes at Dean when the phone rings the fourth straight night. She likes to talk but Dean's not really used to it, doesn't know what to tell her when she asks about him. Has he ever had a girlfriend before and what's his favorite band and what's his family like. Did he grow up here? The answers are _no, Led Zeppelin, pretty cool_ , and _yes_ ; they should be the easiest answers in the whole world, but the words get stuck in his throat.

"I like that you're shy," she says, no matter how much he tries to tell her that he's not. "It's okay with me."

It's easier when they're hanging out and Dean can fill the silences by kissing her. On the phone every night she complains about classes, about how strict her parents are because no one else in their grade has a nine o'clock curfew. She fills his silences with stories about visiting the Grand Canyon when she was a kid, and how annoying her sisters are. It pisses him off when she talks like that and he can't figure out why so he swallows it down and never says a word. They wear down the battery on the cordless, the phone sweaty against his ear while she says, "No, _you_ hang up first." It's after midnight when she finally goes to bed. Dean thinks about the bottle of whiskey he stole and stashed under his bed months ago, falls asleep too chicken to drink himself stupid even though he kinda wants to.

He breaks up with her after school, turns his head away when she tries to kiss him and tells her that they can't hang out anymore. He can't even give her a reason so he just turns his back and walks home. She's the only person who could be behind the rumor that pops up the next week that Dean Winchester has a tiny dick, but he can't be too pissed at her. He was a total asshole, anyway.

***

_It's high summer but the wind feels cold on Dean's face. Bobby's got them crisscrossing the country chasing down spooks and demons, four days in St. Louis, eight in Lafayette, and then back to Sioux Falls. Dean feels like he's spent the whole summer on Bobby's porch and out in the yard, the house stuffy with Sam and Bobby pacing around stacks of books and talking prophecy. Sam just stares at him when Dean suggests taking a break, so Dean takes a couple of beers out to the scrapyard to watch the fireflies, drowsy from a sixteen hour long haul and ready to think about nothing for a while._

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_The yard smells like blood, but Dean's relatively sure it's from the rusted-out heaps Bobby has piled everywhere. It's been months since all those zombies rose in Sioux Falls and Dean knows for a fact it's rained a few times since then. He can't seem to get the smell out of his nose sometimes, but he tries not to let it worry him._

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_When Cas shows up Dean just hands him a beer, months past jumping whenever the angel pops into existence without warning. Castiel sits next to him on the trunk, the car creaking ominously under the extra weight. He's warm against Dean's shoulder even through Dean's leather jacket, and Dean watches Cas watch the stars._

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_"How's the search for God going?"_

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_Castiel rolls his eyes to Dean, his voice flat when he asks, "How is the search for the devil?" Dean sees the irritation before he remembers the times he's seen the angels throw that question in Castiel's face. When he's done it himself, for that matter._

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_Dean holds up a hand in apology. "About the same, I guess."_

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_Castiel pushes off the car and paces away. "If I was unhampered by being hunted on all sides by angels and demons alike, or if I still had full access to the powers of Heaven..." He shoves his hands in his pocket, shoulders hunched like he's expecting a knife in the back. "I find no answers, not even the hint of a trail that might lead me to Him."_

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_"Well... shit," Dean says. Cas turns back to him looking pissed, but Dean figures that a pissed angel is better than a depressed angel, so he plows on. "I'm not gonna claim to be an expert here, but isn't that what faith is? Believing even when it feels like there's nothing to believe in? And I'm not sayin' this to be an asshole, but God does like to test people."_

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_Dean knocks back the rest of his beer, feeling like he'd kicked a puppy at the look on Cas' face. Castiel is quiet, his bottle dangling loosely from his fingers and his eyes on Dean. He comes back to stand almost inbetween Dean's knees; it's way inside his personal space but that stopped being such an issue a while back too._

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_"They are all convinced that he is dead," Castiel says softly._

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_"Well, don't listen to them." Dean says crossly. "Look, Cas... you gotta --"_

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_"I have to have faith," Castiel says. He lifts a hand, hesitantly. Dean has to fight the instinct to shrink away when he closes it, gently, on the brand that he left. Dean lets out a shaky breath, the mark on his shoulder hot under Castiel's hand, and closes his eyes even though he can still feel Cas looking at him. "There are very few things left for me in this world, Dean," Castiel says._

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_Dean jumps like he got shocked when his phone beeps in his pocket, and when he opens his eyes Cas is gone like he was never there. Dean wipes his sweating hands on his thighs, heart hammering in his chest._ Dinner's ready, _the text from Sam says._ Got some bad news for Michigan.

***

Dean's happiest when he's under his car, the smell of asphalt in his nose and the wooden creeper cool against his back. He likes knowing where all the pieces fit, watching her come together. He likes the way his arms are sore after a day of of turning bolts and fighting lug nuts to swap out this part or tighten that one, so he can get everything oiled smooth and happy again. He sits in the drivers seat and listens to the engine with his head cocked to the side, picking out tapping noises or whines in her rumble. It feels like they're getting to know each other.

The dreams are different after working on the Impala. Older. Dean feels like he's reaching up most nights -- _stretching to grab the milk from the top shelf of an old, avocado-green fridge for Sammy's Froot-Loops. To hand his Dad a box of shells to reload, empty cans sitting on fence posts almost invisible in the early morning mist._ He wakes up every morning with hands outstretched across the bed, hanging in the empty air, and he rolls downstairs still lost in the fog. His notebooks gather dust on his floor, pencils strewn across his desk. One lies opened atop the pile of papers, _they keep telling me it was an accident_ scrawled across the page. Dean doesn't look at it and doesn't clearly remember writing it, but it doesn't matter as much when he climbs behind the wheel. He can see them clearly in his minds eye.

He does his homework by rote, three weeks left until summer break and one more year of high school to go. It's hard to imagine another year when a month feels like ten. The spring days are long and slow, creeping past until Dean finds himself watching the clock all the time just to prove to himself that it's moving at all.

Dean fills the time, and fills the time. He's waiting for something but he can't tell what, his whole body taken up with anticipation. The sunlight seems too bright, the world too close; his heart beats as if he can't take in enough air. He can't stamp the feeling with happiness or fear, everything buzzing under his skin.

His mom snags him into a hug on his last day of finals, on her way out the door but she pauses long enough to lean up and press a kiss to his temples. It stops him dead, her arm across his shoulders; all the dreams he's had about her death are a hot ball of shame in him and he buries his face in her shoulder and hugs her back hard. Dad's right, he and Mom aren't as close but the only thing she says when she pulls back is that she's proud of him.

 


	4. One Thing I Don't Believe In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Storm's coming.

4.

 

Dean wakes from a long and dreamless sleep right before the sun slides over the horizon and the world is still murky and pale. He stretches, pushes aside the blanket he and Sammy restlessly shared, fallen asleep on the couch watching movies late at night. Sam's dangling halfway to the floor, the flickering lights from the tv playing over his face. The video, reaching the end of the tape, rewound and started over; Kilgore endlessly crouching in orange fields yelling over the noise of the helicopters, _"I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know one time we had a hill bombed for twelve hours. When it was over I walked up. We didn't find one of them, not one stinkin' dink body."_

Dean stands, sweaty from the blankets and Sam's legs kicked over his own. He opens the front door as quietly as he can, the _snick_ of the lock barely audible over the gunshots on the tv, and goes to stand on the front porch to watch the sun rise. His eyes are gummy from sleep and the lines of the horizon are dark, blurred around the edges. It's the first day of summer vacation, spring flowers faded and long July grasses already obscuring the fence, but the sky is heavy with gathering clouds. Storm's coming.

***

_Dean's climbing the walls watching the news -- Mother of Four Slaughters Family, Gas Station Explosion Kills Twelve -- flicking his Zippo open shut, open shut, until Sam flaps a hand at him and says, "Go do something else before you drive me insane." He doesn't know where Sam expects him to go; rolling blackouts have killed the power in the surrounding counties, their motel an island of uncertain light smack in the middle of miles of darkness._

_He goes out to the car. There's some warm beer in the trunk and an ancient pack of Luckies in the glove box, so Dean supposes he's good for now. The Impala's nearly invisible in the empty parking lot, everybody with sense sticking close to home these days. The creepiest thing about the power outages is how quiet everything is, how you never notice the buzz of the streetlamps until it's gone. He watches Sam read and pace through the yellow curtains of their room until he starts to feel creepy, lights one cigarette off the other before he gives up and texts Cas the name of their motel._

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Castiel shows up looking worried. Dean huffs a laugh, feeling bad, and says, "No, dude, I just -- I saved you a beer." Cas looks dubious but accepts it without argument.

_They sit in silence on the trunk of the car. Dean starts a dozen conversations in his head; doesn't want to talk about Sam or the apocalypse or Lucifer or Bobby but his brain's empty of any other topics, so he just peels the label off his beer in little strips. With anyone else it'd probably be awkward but Castiel's usually pretty happy to sit and stare at things too._

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_It's Cas who breaks the silence, in the end. He nudges Dean and says, "Would you play some Led Zeppelin?"_

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_Dean laughs, startled. Castiel's eyes are round and puzzled like they usually are when he doesn't get the joke. He raises one eyebrow at Dean until Dean cracks a smile, shoves off the trunk to go rummage in the box of tapes. "Which album do you want to hear, dude?"_

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_"Houses of the Holy?"_

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_"Um," Dean snorts, "Maybe not that one."_

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_Castiel mulls this over. "Two, then."_

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_Dean's gotta admit that Cas made a good choice when the opening chords of Whole Lotta Love roll out of the speakers. He clinks his beer bottle against the angel's, follows the line of Castiel's throat while he swallows. He raises his eyes to the sky to drain the rest of his beer, thinks about being on the road again. No destination, just Zeppelin and two-lane blacktop and the wind on his face. In his most wildly optimistic moments, it still seems possible._

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_Castiel is watching him like he knows what Dean's thinking and hell, he probably does. The angel's way smarter than Dean usually gives him credit for, even if he's still only halfway there on the whole cellphone business. Dean throws him a smirk and takes a step forward, into the vee of Castiel's thighs. He's as warm as when their positions were reversed in Bobby's junkyard weeks ago._

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_Dean drops his empty to the ground and wraps a hand into Castiel's tie, twines it around his fist. Cas takes a long pull on his beer, his eyes locked to Dean's and his lips twitching in the ghost of a smile around the mouth of the bottle. Smug bastard, Dean thinks, and leans in to kiss him._

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_Castiel tastes like beer; his lips are chapped and he's clearly no expert but he kisses like a current's running through him. Dean loses himself almost instantly; no empty parking lot, no apocalypse, no motel room full of Sam's shadows. Castiel stands to meet him, cups the base of Dean's skull to pull him down, and presses their bodies together._

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_They make it to the backseat. Cas hesitates at the door so Dean shoves him inside and follows him down. Castiel is thin, hungry looking when Dean pulls his tie free and unbuttons Castiel's shirt. Dean traces the lines of Cas' ribs and resolves to feed him some more hamburgers. Dean's pendant is around Castiel's neck, nestled in the hollow of his throat._

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_"Thought you were carrying that around in your pocket," Dean says. Cas looks at him scornfully and pushes Dean hard into the leather seat. He strips Dean of his jacket, flannel, and shirt. Dean can hear some of his buttons ping into the foot well. Cas climbs on top in one smooth motion, both thighs braced alongside Dean's own. Dean pushes Cas' jacket and dress shirt off his shoulders, traps Castiel's wrists behind his back in the tangle of clothing. He grins when Cas struggles against him. The pendant's cold against Dean's chest when Cas leans down, licks into Dean's mouth. Castiel is passive for one long moment, suspended._

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_Cas yanks a hand free, grabbing at the hair at the back of Dean's skull. He pulls, his mouth hot on Dean's exposed throat, teeth scraping along the jugular. Dean stills, panting._

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_Dean's thought about it, sure, but Anna was his only reference for what he'd imagined about Castiel: a long ocean wave pulling him down, a firecracker for sure, but she was still human that last night before the end. Castiel isn't and there's no fucking doubt about it; Dean remembers the sight of those huge black wings arching toward the roof of that barn and sees the echo of them in the Impala in tiny sparks of electricity arching from his skin to Cas' fingertips when they touch. It reminds him of Raphael. Cas toes his dress shoes off and peels away his pants without a hint of shame or self-knowledge. Dean slides his own jeans over hips and thighs and one ankle at a time to land who-gives-a-shit where. Dean cups his ass, pulls Cas forward until he gets it, knee walks up Dean's body to twine his fingers in Dean's hair. Dean mouths at the head of Castiel's dick, slides his tongue around the head and pulls Cas in to swallow him down._

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_Castiel's hips snap forward and Dean gags, puts his hand on Cas, one thumb laying alongside Cas' hipbone to show him how fast, how deep. The angle's awkward; Dean's ears are ringing and his neck is going to kill him later but ah fuck, he thinks, it'll be worth it. Dean feels like he's drowning in this; Castiel all he can taste and smell, sharp like iron or blood. He feels like he's been waiting for this, maybe since Cas pulled him out of hell. Zeppelin's Thank You is playing, and it makes Dean think about how maybe he owes Cas more than he can repay._

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_Dean sneaks a glance up; Cas looks wrecked, blue eyes gleaming in the light from the single street lamp. It's too bright to be just the reflection, and Dean has a bare moment to wonder if he should be worried before Castiel slaps a hand over his eyes and his whole body tenses. Castiel cries out; there's a sense of ozone, of lightning in the air and then it's just them, ragged breathing in a cramped car. Castiel staring wide eyed down at Dean, who takes everything he can._

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_Dean cracks a fresh beer when they've put themselves back together, sweat drying under their clothes. Cas looks peaceful, happier than Dean's probably ever seen him. Dean lights his last Lucky Strike and says, "About this finding God thing. I'm thinkin', hey, maybe you're not completely insane."_

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***

Dean hums the whole walk to his Dad's shop, the day clear and the sun hot on his face. Today's the day that he's going to paint his baby. He and his Dad've washed, sanded, washed, sanded, buffed, washed, filled, primered and sanded one last time.

The shop's a cacophony of men and metal, Aerosmith on the boombox and the crash of a wrench tossed carelessly into a roll cart. A few guys wave to the boss man's kid before turning back to whatever they were doing.

"Hey, Deano," Mike says, wiping his hands with a greasy rag. "Figured out what color you're gonna paint that Impala of yours?"

"Well," Dean says, "Sammy wants me to paint it blue with red flames, but I think he just really likes Optimus Prime, y'know? Mom's voting for white, says it's classy."

"What do you think?"

Dean grins. "She's gonna be black, of course."

Mike laughs, claps him on the shoulder. "That's m'boy," he says. "Anyway, your dad's upstairs doin' some paperwork, I'm sure he'd be grateful for the interruption if you need him."

Dean jumps the rickety stairs to the office two at a time, knocks twice before letting himself inside. Dad's office is always crazy, _hasn't been cleaned out since before you were born_ , Dad always tells him. There're yellowed papers faded by the sun tacked up all over the walls, Sammy's Christmas cards from first grade, Dean's T-Ball trophy from third, and boxes going soft at the edges stacked nearly to the ceiling and labeled only with the year. Dad's hunched at his desk, gives Dean a quick hug and lets himself be led down to the floor.

Dean preps the spray gun, gets his mask and goggles on. Every layer of grime and dirt they peeled off the Impala was like a weight off his chest. They put the base coat on yesterday and left it to dry overnight. Dean paints under his Dad's supervision, breathing easier with every wash of shiny black paint. The car looks naked without the bumpers and windows; everything he didn't want to get paint on dismantled and laying under a tarp a few feet away. It looks wrong but Dean's gonna fix it; he can't wait to get everything put back together.

***

The diner's controlled chaos at the best of times, but with two servers out sick on a Sunday morning it's a panic of spilled water glasses, _orders up!_ and waitresses sweating through their makeup. Dean's hustling fast as he can, bus tub hoisted high on his shoulder clearing a swath through dirty tables. Not really even a minute to check the clock but he stops when he sees the Regular (always capitalized in his mind, like they only have the one) sitting quietly with his hands folded over his menu at his regular table, an island in the storm.

The waitresses are at the kitchen window arguing with the cooks so Dean drops his dishes in the pit and takes the guy a cup of coffee. Dean's blushing like crazy because he's pretty sure he had a dirty dream about that guy the other night; he turns it into a grin and slides the cup across the table to the Regular.

"Hey," Dean says, "Sorry about the wait, we're short today. Cheeseburger, right?"

Regular near jumps out of his seat; he blinks guilty blue eyes up at Dean like Dean caught him doing something wrong. He nods, hesitantly. Dean's turning away when he reaches out, catches Dean by the elbow. He's got a half a smile like he doesn't know quite how to work his face but the Regular's eyes are warm, locked on Dean's. "Thank you," he says softly.

Dean's pretty sure his face gets even redder at that but he's grinning the whole rest of his shift, his elbow warm where he was touched.

***

_Sam and Dean spend days in heavy rain digging bodies from the mud, landslides gouging mile long scars across California. They work shoulder to shoulder with orange jacketed rescue crews until their boots are soaked through with gritty silt, feet pale and wet when they fall into bed at the end of every night. On the third day Dean pulls a little girl from the wreckage of her collapsed house, somehow still alive and it's a goddamn miracle is what it is. Dean watches them bundle her into an ambulance; everybody's crying and maybe him too, something caught in his throat. But when he turns to Sam Sam's just staring at the bodies laid out along the road for identification, his eyes flat like nothing else existed in the world._

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_The next day, back on the road, Sam tells Dean the final body count. It's lower than Dean thought it'd be, but all he can think about is the way that girl's icy fingers curled over his own._

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***

"Dad!

"Dad! Get a move on!"

Dean's bouncing on his heels like a puppy, one foot braced on the first stair up to the office. He yells again and then thinks _screw it_ and runs the whole way up. He pops his head into his Dad's office but his Dad's just squinting at stacks of paper and looking not at all ready to leave. Dean jingles the keys at him and Dad startles, almost drops everything.

"Hey, Dean," Dad starts. Dean's stomach drops at the guilty look on his face. "I can't make it today. I got this stack of invoices and --"

"It can't wait? Dad, she's _ready_." Dean knows he sounds pathetic but he doesn't care, the Impala already pulled out of the garage and gleaming in the summer sun for her maiden voyage. His Dad needs to be there for it.

"I know, kiddo," Dad says, "Tell ya what, why don't we take her on a trip this weekend, go visit your grandparents down in Oaklahoma. Or," he backpedals, hands in the air at the look on Dean's face, "Something fun. Promise."

"Promise?"

Dad wraps an arm around his shoulder. "Take your brother out today, you know he'll love it."

Dad's right: Sammy's out of the house like a shot when he hears the rumble of the Impala coming down the road, like he was sitting at the window waiting for Dean. He piles grinning into the passenger seat so fast that Dean has to send him back inside to get shoes. Mom waves from the porch, a bemused smile on her face.

Dean waits til they're on the highway out of town before he opens her up, rolls down the window to let the summer air roar by. Sam hollers into the wind, his hair whipping around his face. Dean doesn't know where they're going and doesn't care, just wants to keep driving forever. It's AC/DC on the radio; they yell the words out into the day _hiiiiiighway to Hell_ , each trying to be louder than the other. Sammy airguitars the last screaming wails of the song and they share a grin. Dean looks at his brother, the kid sprouting like a weed these days but he's still the baby Dean remembers and Dean kinda gets it all of a sudden, the way his Mom and Dad look at him sometimes. He takes a hand off the wheel to ruffle Sam's hair and thinks to himself that he wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the whole world right now.

The radio squawks, "Breaking news story, Tom; there was a 5.9 earthquake in California today, caused some property damage to --"

_\-- earthquake today in California --_

Dean's vision blurs, doubling; he grabs at the wheel as his world narrows down to a pinprick. He has a bare moment to panic, _shitshit please not now_ , no air left and his last thought is for Sammy before --

_Dean opens his eyes, nodding off over the wheel after nine hours on the road and the droning voice on the radio not helping worth shit. " -- ia claimed 5,000 lives today at best estimate, the deadliest so far in the week's series of earthquakes. Cities that remain closed to travel include Santa Cruz, Lompoc, Modesto, and San Francisco. Officials again warn residents not to --"_

_Sam turns the radio down to a murmur, neither of them able to bear silence for long. Dean glances over; Sam's watching the yellow lines or maybe just staring into space, his face drawn and distant. "I thought the apocalypse would be..." He breathes out, his arms tight across his chest. "I thought it'd be fighting demons, y'know?"_

_Dean raises an eyebrow, not sure what Sam's getting at. They killed twenty demons just this week. Sam shrugs. "No, it ... with all this going on," he gestures at the radio, "It's like the earth itself is attacking us. We can't salt and burn a hurricane."_

_Sam turns his head, looks Dean dead in the eye. There's no challenge in it, no argument in his voice when he says, "How long do you honestly think we can keep fighting this, Dean?"_

" -- the Madera City Hall, but no injuries were reported. Next up is weather and sports."

Dean blinks, his hand pressed hard to his chest but Sam's still laughing next to him and the sun's still shining in the sky. They're sailing down the highway, not a beat missed and the radio droning on and on. Dean inhales, breath sharp in his chest. He looks around him at the bench seat, the tape deck, _Sam_. It hits him all of a sudden in the smell of the leather and the feel of the steering wheel under his hands. The roar of the Impala's engine, everything.

_Everything._

***

The first thing Dean does when he gets home is to lock the door to his room and pull the bottle of whiskey out from under his bed. He pours a few fingers into the dusty water glass by his bed; doesn't have a shot glass and hadn't needed one, before. He drains it in one. It burns as it goes down, settles hot and uneasy in his stomach. Nothing left in there since he puked it all up in the grass by the side of Highway 10.

He pulls all his old journals off his bookshelf, digs them out from his closet. Dean hasn't looked at some of these for years. He still remembers which one was his favorite, which one felt the most complete. He pulls it open, his stomach heaving at the words he wrote down on the pages himself. All those faithfully recreated photos and creatures stretched across the lines. He reads _November 13, 1984 -- Nothing makes sense anymore_ , and snaps the journal shut. His hands shake on the binding before he throws it hard enough to _bang_ against the wall.

There's a knock on the door, so small he can barely hear it. "Dean...?"

It's Sammy. The look on his face when Dean turned the car around. He couldn't say anything, didn't know what he _would_ say if he could but it didn't matter, the words were stuck in his throat no matter what. He remembers it, he...

"Sammy, I told you I'm sick," Dean says thickly. "Lemme alone." He presses the heel of his palm to his eyes, hard enough to see stars. He pours himself another glass when he hears Sam's footsteps move away. In another hour it's his mom banging on the door to call him down for dinner but Dean can't imagine looking his family in the face right now.

The answer's there, he knows it is, but it's on the tip of his tongue and just out of reach. Dean drinks until he passes out, goes to where the answers have always been.

***

_Sam is gone before Dean wakes up, and he leaves no note of any kind. No voicemail, nothing on the laptop or on the table or scribbled out and thrown in the trash can. Nothing._

_Sam leaves everything behind. Dean spends an hour pacing their motel room trying to convince himself that Sam stepped out for breakfast or coffee, that he's coming back. It doesn't work, he woke up feeling like someone had walked over his grave because he knows Sam better than anyone and the feeling's only getting worse as the sky darkens in mid-day. Black clouds rolling into a clear blue sky. He knows exactly what Sam's done._

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_Dean calls Castiel over and over, leaves him voicemail after text message until finally he just goes into the parking lot and starts yelling Cas' name. There's a man smoking by the motel office; Dean starts towards him but he shakes his head and slips back inside. Just a man, then. He leaves Dean alone in the parking lot. Dean squints at the sky and wonders how long it's gonna take for that storm to break._

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_No one comes for him. Dean woulda figured on Zachariah at least taking another probably literal stab at getting Dean to say yes to Michael but maybe because there's no one on the road to tell Zach where he is, or maybe Cas just hid them that well, nobody shows. Dean waits until night to pack it in, shoves all of Sam's clothes in the trunk in one stupidly optimistic moment even though they're practically within walking distance of Detroit and how could he let that happen? He knew that Sam... That Sam was tired, hell, and Dean's tired too but you don't see him ending the world over that._

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_Dean heads toward South Dakota, hopes he has enough time to make it to Bobby's house. Not a bad place to make a final stand, he supposes. He calls Sam even though he can hear Sam's ring tone from the trunk, even though Sam probably doesn't exist anymore. Dean thinks of that garden stuffed with roses at the end of his future; he knows it'll never come to that. Not if he has anything to say about it._

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_"Sam, I know you're never gonna get this._

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_"I wanna yell at you. I wanna hit you so hard you're gonna feel it next week. I wanna tear you a new asshole, Sam. I think it's a shit move on your part because ... because you know, and I know, that I can't finish this. Not the way everybody keeps tellin' me I should._

__

__

_"You're selfish, Sammy, and you always have been and that's... that's my fault. I know that. But if I ever see you again I'm gonna. Gonna..._

__

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_"Shit, I can't even joke about it._

__

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_"But I wanted you to know that I don't blame you. This... everything, it's too much for anybody. I thought I'd be mad as hell but I don't have time for it anymore. I... I can't. And 'cause I'm never gonna get a chance to say it again I'm gonna tell you one last time that you're my brother, and I love you. No matter what."_

__

__

***

Dean comes back to himself heaving face down into the toilet, whiskey burning in his nose.

***

_Dean wakes up. He'd made it halfway through Iowa before he got off the highway, couldn't do another mile. Not a motel open anywhere so he parked in the lot of the least sketchy one he could find, even though the sign said CLOSED FOR RAPTURE rather than VACANT. Too tired and paranoid to even break into a room to sleep on a bed for the night, he'd curled up in the back of the Impala with his leather jacket for a pillow. Still smelled a little like sex back there and he thought about jerking off but crashed too fast to give it any serious consideration._

__

__

_He wakes up to the sound of rain, the world washed in red light like the back of some cheap strip joint. It takes him longer than it should, blinking awake in the quiet car, to realize what it is. Dean eases himself over and into the front seat, turns the keys in the ignition to start the windshield wipers. It parts the curtain in waves, the wipers squeaky and he thinks, inanely, that he needs to oil them._

__

__

_The world is covered in blood, thin red streams pouring off the motel and flooding the streets. Pouring from the clouds. Dean breathes shallowly, the smell thick and full in the car. He never smokes inside his baby but he lights one now to cover up the taste of blood in his mouth. Can't even bring himself to crack a window._

__

__

_He heads west, slowly. Highway's empty of life, cars smashed into the center divider, overturned. Wheels still spinning. There's a way through like it's been planned for him but he takes it anyway. There are shapes that look like they might once have been people scattered through the fields. Most of the radio's gone silent, only a few top 40 satellite stations mindlessly spinning the hits or a Christian channel praying for the Lord to take them up to Heaven. Nothing useful._

__

__

_There's no answer at Bobby's house even though Dean calls every line he's got. Dean wants to kill himself for leaving the old man alone. Bobby's one tough son of a bitch, he'll be okay, but..._

__

__

_He's gotta be okay._

__

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_Dean calls Cas._

__

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_"I don't know why the fuck you aren't answering the goddamn phone, Cas. I know you know how to do that. Tell me what the hell is going on._

__

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_"Sam... I don't know. I mean, I DO know. Zachariah, Lucifer, they got a pretty good line. I thought free will was the point, though, the whole goddamn point to being human. Otherwise what's the use? Why even bother?_

__

__

" _I thought about saying yes. I really did. I couldn't do it. I pointed a gun right between Sam's eyes before and I couldn't do that either. I don't know if that makes me weak or what, but I just... I've been fighting so long I don't know how else to be._

__

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_Dean laughs, hopelessly. "Please, Cas. I need your help."_

__

__

***

Dean wakes to a cloth on his forehead and a thermometer in his mouth. The room is dark, the only light sneaking in from the hallway past the door, open a just a crack. Dean can't see anything but it smells like crap, rank with old sweat and fresh vomit. It's a fair approximation of how he feels.

The bed shifts, springs creaking under new weight as somebody sits down next to him. Dean smells motor oil, his dad's aftershave. Dad clicks on the lamp and the room stops spinning, Dean pinned to the sheets under his Dad's sad gaze. He holds a glass of water to Dean's mouth and Dean realizes that he's thirsty, mouth dry as a bone. He chokes on the cold water, ice cubes clinking against his teeth. The glass comes away empty, smudged with blood from where he's been chewing on his lip.

"What's going on with you?"

Dean looks at his Dad, the place under his chin where a scar should be. Dad grew a beard to hide the wound a spirit left when it tried to open his throat. It'd been a near thing but they'd lived, everybody made it out alive. Dad's missing scars all over this face and it never happened, none of it ever happened.

"Dean, talk to me," his dad pleads.

"Aw, shit," Dean says, and slips under again.

***

_There are people out there. Dean sees them slide like shadows across the highway. Churches lit up like beacons, calling in the newly faithful. A truck stop burning, shimmering figures on their knees by the diesel pumps, arms to the sky like they're waiting to be taken home. Dean doesn't stop, doesn't have the time._

Sioux Falls is full of shuttered windows and abandoned cars, twists of bitter smoke leaching from the ground. Dean is cold behind the wheel, looking for signs of life. The rain's stopped but the town is washed red and rank, gleaming with flickering streetlights.

Castiel is on Bobby's porch like a stray when Dean pulls up. Dean's not sure whether to coldcock him or kiss him for finally, fucking finally showing up. His hands are shaking trying to get the keys out of the ignition; he leaves them there and climbs the steps double time. Castiel's barely standing, mouth slack and eyes fever bright. He sways like a drunk and Dean grabs him, fingers gripping each bicep and if Cas were human it'd probably hurt.

"Where's Bobby?" Cas' eyes roll back in his head and Dean shakes him like he can rattle all the answers loose from the angel like spare change. Castiel snaps back, hands coming up to crowd Dean's face and Dean leans into it, wants to get lost for just a moment in the push of Cas' thumb along his jaw.

"I couldn't find you," Castiel says. He presses their foreheads together, one hand in the hair at the base of Dean's skull. The angel smells like rotted blood and Dean chokes a little this close but he's suddenly sure in the pit of his stomach that Cas is all that's left, that he already knew Bobby wasn't gonna be here because he'd be outside if --

There's a noise like an exhaled breath, sharp in their ears. Heat blooms across their faces and Dean pulls away to find the world on fire. The sky roiling with it, red clouds lit up against the night. Dean remembers watching oil wells on fire on TV during the Gulf War. His Dad's funeral pyre, the way the flames twisted towards the stars. Cas's nose is bleeding when he turns around, black in the light from the fires.

"Something's happening," Castiel breathes. He reaches out, two fingers against Dean's forehead, and the world vanishes.

Dean opens his eyes in a crush of bodies, shoved along like a river. Running. He falls, pushed down; panics. Feet on his back and he rolls, trying to protect himself. Catches at elbows to haul himself up. They turn, eyes black. Blood splashes across his face, and the world splits. The mob shoves back. Angels fall from the sky like bombs dropping to wrestle demons to the mud. Someone takes a swing at him; Dean pulls out Ruby's knife and feels ribs crack when he slams it into their heart. He has time to think, 'So this is what an all-access pass to the end of the world looks like', and then the next demon is on him.

Dean loses time. Everything narrowed down to heat, his grip on the knife slippery with sweat. Clothes covered in gore, sticking to his skin. Things start to slip as each demon dies, burned out of the host. He sees Zachariah disappear beneath the endless numbers, red wings crumpled and pinned to the ground. Castiel is gone, nowhere to be seen and Dean howls his name over the cacophony. He sees Sam, once; the shape of his shoulders unmistakable before he's gone.

It seems like forever. Until Dean is alone, a field of corpses thick on the ground. River running through, a living thing. No sound but the roar of the fires, the whole world gone up in flames. Dean screams for his brother, for Castiel. Opens his arms up to the sky and prays.

Castiel surfaces, hands breaching the bloody waters of the river, and Dean fights to pull him free. Cas cradles his face, his eyes full of manic joy. He laughs, sharp and sudden, the only time Dean's ever heard it. Castiel pulls Dean forward to kiss him and Dean pushes him away. "Where's Sam?" he yells, but Castiel just shakes his head.

All around them the angels are crawling from the river, falling on their knees as they raise their hands up to the rising sun. The world quakes.

"Dean," Castiel breathes, "We did it. God is coming to save us."

Dean stills, all his jokes and bullshit out the window; no words left to him at the end. Sam should be here, he thinks, and the thought isn't bitter, somehow. True anyway. All his life Dean'd tried to protect that kid, until he couldn't anymore. Dean stares into the growing light, finally able to put down the weight. Been ready for years, he thinks.

"No," Castiel grabs him, horrified realization dawning across his face as the sun burns brighter and brighter. "No, no, no," he says, words broken and angry. His hands are rough, tangled in Dean's shirts. The world turns white around them, Castiel's face etched in stark lines. Dean has time to think that Cas has never looked more human before, stricken and sick with knowledge. Mountains crumble miles away, the earth and sky fleeing from judgement, and Dean knows that there's nowhere safe for Castiel to put him even if he wanted to go.

Dean laughs. "Cas, it's okay," he says. He can feel himself burning, but there's no pain. He closes his eyes when it hits, rolling over him like ocean waves. He takes a last breath, his body ripped apart into the light, and goes.

He doesn't remember anything after that.

 

 


	5. One Thing I Don't Believe In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's get you some gas money.

5.

 

Dean blinks awake into a cold house, the light from the street lamps filtering inside. He takes a long, slow breath.

Everything hurts. Dean drags himself to the shower, sits shivering under the water until it warms. His skin is tacky with dried sweat. The water runs grey down the drain, as hot as he can stand it. Feels like years go with it, the weight on his shoulders, until the water is clear.

Dean wonders if this is what ghosts feel like, weightless and insubstantial. He dresses in the dark, gathers all his old journals, and slips quietly out the front door. The Impala is a low rumble around him as he pulls out into the neighborhood. The night air is clean and cold, closer to dawn than he'd realized. Birds are hesitantly starting to chirp in the trees.

There's a barn outside of town, far enough away that kids come to party there sometimes. Nobody there, now, so there is where Dean goes. He hops over the busted fence, kicks aside the empty beer bottles. He clears the bonfire pit of trash and crushed empty cans and he lays all the journals in it, every last page of his fathers -- his own -- writing. Then he sets it on fire, and stays to watch it burn. The sun's slipped over the horizon before he gets back in the car and drives home.

There's a light on in the kitchen when he pulls into the driveway. Dean parks. He listens to the engine cool, little ticks and pops, before he can make himself get out.

Mom's waiting up for him at the kitchen table, fingers wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. The tear-down calendar on the wall behind her tells Dean that he's been out for three days. She looks tired, wrapped in a fluffy robe like she just got out of bed. She looks beautiful. All the times he's gotten to meet his mother in his life, every one, that's the first thought that crosses his mind. Dean realizes he's shaking when he leans down to hug her, the whole world falling away when she wraps her arms around him.

Mom sits him down and pours him a cup. They sit in silence drinking black coffee; if Dean had thought about it before, he might've pegged her as a cream'n'sugar drinker. Just one more thing he'd never known. Dean drums uncomfortable fingers on the table top, but she just looks at him, worried.

"Dean," she says, finally. At the sound of her voice Dean pushes away his chair, retreats to the kitchen counter.

"I'm okay, Mom," he says, hands raised defensively. "I'm better now."

Mom raises an an eyebrow at him, and sighs. "Dean," she starts, "You've always been very much your own person."

Dean huffs a laugh. "You can say it, Mom, I know I'm kind of a freak."

"That's not what I was trying to say, and you know it," she says. For a minute the irritation in her voice sounds so much like Sam that Dean has to swallow down a laugh. She gets up to stand in front of him. "Dean... I know life has never come easy for you. But we love you for who you are, no matter what." She reaches up to cup his cheek, her eyes honest on his. "I don't know what's gotten into you. Just... just tell me how we can help."

Dean lets out a shaky breath, his own eyes burning. He presses the heels of his hands to them until he sees stars. "I think..." He knows the answer but it's hard to get it out, stuck somewhere in his chest. "I need to go. Just for... just for a couple of weeks. Roadtrip, y'know? Get out of my head." Her eyebrows furrow skeptically, and Dean rushes over what she might say, "I'll be okay. I just need to ... to figure some things out." He laughs, weakly, and he hates lying to her but he says it anyway, "I'll tell you everything when I get back, I promise."

She looks him up and down, measuring. Dean holds his breath against the tick of the clock. He knows he's gonna leave no matter what but he suddenly, desperately, doesn't want to disappoint her. "I love you, Mom," he says all in a rush, and wraps his arms around her. "Please."

She takes a deep breath into his shoulder. "All right," she says softly. "Let's get you some gas money."

***

Wake up. Brush teeth. The easiest way to do this when you don't have a sink is to take a tiny sip of water rather than dousing the toothbrush. Less waste, less mess. Rinse with another tiny sip. Avoid feet when spitting. Bathing is more complicated. And taking a shit? Oh yeah, Dean remembers all this.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that nothing's changed. The road's still the same, that'll always be the same. The landmarks shift under your feet but the road never changes. When Dean's roaring down the highway fifteen miles over the limit passing some asshole driving a Lexus with his middle finger raised, wind in his hair and summer sky overhead, sure. Just like old times. Then he reaches for his box of tapes. Or pulls into a gas station and gas is only a buck-oh-five. That one never gets old.

He calls home every couple of days, reassures whoever's around that he's still alive. Dad didn't want him to go, _whatever it is, we can deal with it as a family_ was what he said. Sam was a heartbroken face in the window when Dean pulled out of the driveway. Dean has to use a payphone to check in and every time he slides a dime into the slot he wishes for his cell phone. He guesses it'll be years before he can afford one, even longer until they're smaller than his head. Funny to know the future; it makes Dean feel like he's in on the joke, for once.

Park. WalMart lets you sleep in their parking lot if you buy something but Dean hates the bright lamps, the feeling that someone is watching him. So, park somewhere inconspicuous. Nowhere to get the full eight hours. Rest stops work if you don't stay long. Side streets work if the neighbors don't call the cops on you. Best places are the deserted ones. Still never sleep worth a damn; a crick in the neck and an aching back ride shotgun when you're sleeping in your car.

Dean calls Cas. _The number you have dialed is no longer in service._

Dean slips a postcard to home in the mail when he hits the Nebraska border, jackalope on the front and a _wish you were here_ on the back. The Roadhouse is still standing, one window busted like a black eye but Harvelle's still slapped proudly across the front in red neon. It's two oclock in the afternoon, too early even for happy hour but the open sign is on, so Dean parks. Day's hot as hell, dust-whipped wind stinging against his skin and it feels like walking into a dream to be standing there again staring at those same beer signs.

Bells chime as the door creaks open. Dean can't see shit it's so dark but it even still smells the same, _mud, blood and beer nuts_. He's stuck dumb, just breathing it in.

"Can I help you there, kid?"

Dean squints into the gloom. There's a man polishing glasses behind the bar; he would've expected Ash but it's nobody he knows even though there's something familiar in that raised eyebrow. Dean coughs the dust out of his throat, suddenly aware that he's nothing more than some sunburnt kid sweaty from too many hours in a car.

"I'm just, uh... thirsty," he says lamely, "It's hot out."

Bartender looks him up and down, probably eyeballing the Minors Prohibited sign on the door behind Dean, but he just sighs and motions with his chin for Dean to sit. He throws the towel over his shoulder and pops a Coke for Dean. "Anybody comes in here and asks," he says, a hint of a smile on his face, "You're a member of the family. Okay, son?"

Dean nods, stupidly grateful that he's allowed to stay. The soda's so cold it kinda burns but it's good, best thing he's had all day. His hands are shaking a little around the glass; he feels like he's seeing double, worried for a minute that it's one of his visions or whatever they are but he breathes deep and it passes. Just some form of fucked up deja vu. The Roadhouse had never been home, but it'd started to come close. And Ellen and Jo...

"Bill!" Dean startles at the voice, the kitchen doors swinging open. A woman pushes through, pulling a dolly stacked full of beer after her. "Little help here?" she says over her shoulder. For a second Dean's sure it's Jo in the set of her shoulders and the curve of her smile, before he remembers Jo's still probably in elementary school, and he looks again.

Ellen. It's Ellen and Dean'd never really thought about it but he'd never really seen Ellen happy before this; even her smiles weighted down by grief and worry. There's a moment when she sees Dean, a look at the bartender and a brief exchange of a half smile and a tilted head, the communication of years of practice and suddenly Dean feels like an idiot for not knowing who the guy was before.

Dean drinks his soda around the lump in his throat, just watching them. Ellen a spitting image for her daughter. An easy familiarity in the way she moves around her husband behind the bar, bumps him with a hip to throw him off balance. The way she laughs when he shoos her with the towel.

Dean leaves a few crumpled ones on the bar in thanks, and hits the road.

***

The water's freezing when it hits the back of his neck and Dean jerks, startled, and cracks his head on the sharp edge of the faucet. Craned, too tall for this with his face shoved into the smooth bowl of the porcelain. He breathes deeply, spits out the water running into his mouth. A semi rumbles into the parking lot and rattles the windows of the clammy concrete bathroom. Dean can't hear shit through the curtain of water, just the roaring in his ears until he pulls back to squirt a little shampoo into his hand. Lather. Rinse. He washes the dirt off his arms as best as he can and strips his shirt off to wash his pits; wishes he could take a shower but doesn't really have the wad to blow on motel services.

The sun is knives in his eyes when he steps outside into the truckstop parking lot. He ducks inside the convience store, sacrifices five bucks for a bottle of water and a couple of tapes. Ratt, Styx, nothing too classy. He jogs across the heat of the asphalt to slide into the Impala, slams the door shut behind him and realizes he's got no idea what to do next.

If he'd been honest with himself, he didn't even think the Roadhouse was gonna be there. Now he's got a whole country but nowhere to be. He wants to see Cas, but what's he gonna do? Drive most of a day to Pontiac and see Jimmy Novak happy with his wife and kid?

It scares the shit out of him but more than anybody he wants to see Bobby. Still doesn't know what'd happened to him, back when they all died. Bobby always pulled through before, always knew the answer, and Dean'd give anything to have Bobby rip him a new one for getting them stuck in this crazy world. He could just picture it, too; Bobby'd come stomping out of house -- never woulda crippled himself to save them -- and he'd shake Dean until his teeth rattled loose, smiling all the while.

It's not gonna go like that. Dean knows that. But there's no way he's not gonna try.

***

Dean makes it almost all the way there. He stops in that diner where Bobby'd gotten them caught by the local law. Hands shaking, starving, and not quite ready to face whatever lay down the road. Biscuits and gravy, cup of coffee. On second thought, bowl of fruit, too. Dean's irked at the way he can't live on grease and pie anymore, craves apples on the road instead of cheetoes. Used to be it was Ring Dings stashed in the glove box but now it's a bag of cherries from a roadside stand, dark red and warm from the summer sun.

He thinks, sometimes, that it's not all bad. Dean's manager had hugged him when he said he had to quit, told him he always had a place there. Diners don't just remind him of how it used to be. Dean watches the cook flirt with his waitress at the window until his food comes out, digs in thinking about Lawrence.

There's a flyer under his windshield wiper when he comes out of the diner, Vote for a Safer Tomorrow splashed across the top and that's as far as Dean reads before he crumples it in his fist and tosses it away. That's the kind of black humor he might've appreciated before, but the irony's just killing him now.

Bobby's hometown's even smaller than he remembered, no Walmart two stops down the highway and shy a good chunk of main street. Not that they ever spent much time in the town proper; Bobby'd had everything they needed out at his place and they'd had an unspoken agreement not to let their faces get known. Still, Dean never forgets a town.

It feels like there's rocks in his stomach driving out to Bobby's house, heavy and sharp and he kind of wants to puke. Kind of wants to turn around, go back to Kansas or Arizona or Wisconsin. Anywhere else.

The house still looks the same. Same chipped blue paint, hubcaps hanging like trophys along the siding. Same hulking jagged piles of junked cars stacked up to there like god dropped them that way. Sign's not the same, says U-Pull-It instead of Singer Salvage. Smells different too -- just motor oil and earth.

Dean takes the stairs two at a time, still feeling like he's walking to the gallows. Feels weird to knock at the front door, standing there nervous like he's waiting for a prom date rather than just walking right in. Laying down the duffel full of weapons and dirty laundry and yelling, "Hey Bobby, you got any beer?"

Feels like forever that he waits on the porch, time slowed to a molasses crawl. His heart's jackhammering in his chest, the sun hot on the back of his neck and he feels like he's being split in pieces with all the different directions he wants to run. For a second, when the front door opens, he thinks it's Rufus standing there. Same stooped shoulders and sharp eyes, but he blinks and it's just somebody else he doesn't know. Nobody to him.

It hits him, again, that Bobby's just not coming.

***

"Winchester Auto Repair, this is John Winchester speaking."

"...Dad?"

"Dean?" There's a scuffle of papers, a crackle across the phone lines. Dean can hear the relief clear in his father's voice. "Hey, Dean, what's going on? Is everything okay?"

He wants to laugh. Remembers, suddenly, being ten years old. Dad hunting a werewolf two states over, Sam sick and Dean calls... Dean calls him, climbing the walls and scared because Sam still had a fever and ... and just because he missed his Dad, he can admit it now. Dad a voice over the phone, asking _Sammy feeling better? Is everything okay?_

"Dean? Still there, kiddo?"

Dean clears his throat, "Yeah, Dad. I'm still here."

"Good. That's good." A semi roars by, whack of wind like a hand against his back rocking him forward. The noise almost drowns out his Dad, and Dean pushes the phone hard against his sweating ear. "Where are you?"

Crossroads. Highway headed out of town. Payphone outside a convenience store bleached white by the sun, its COLD BEER signs cracked and faded, wedged into the bars covering the windows. God, Dean could go for a beer right now.

"South Dakota. I'm in South Dakota."

Dad pauses. Dean can almost see him in that dark office, all that crap pinned to the wall and in stacks all around him. Surprises him, to think about it now -- Dad didn't really start doing that shit, decorating the motel rooms like that, until after Sammy left. The more things change, he supposes. "Are you..." Dad takes a breath, phone cradled on his shoulder, his hands probably steepled in front of him like he always does when he's thinking. "Dean, are you finding what you're looking for, out there?"

Dean laughs, scuffs his feet against the gravel. He shades a hand against his face and squints out into the light. Everything smells like dust out here. Nobody really on this road, lonely highway heading out to the farms or wherever, just a place to buy beer and a billboard across the way. Dean scowls at the VOTE FOR A SAFER TOMORROW stamped in red letters. "I'll let you know when I -- " He stops dead, sucker punched again when he finally reads the damn sign, finally looks at what's been staring him in the face.

SINGER FOR SHERIFF, it says, and there's Bobby, arm around his wife and a little boy. He's got a suit on and a serious look on his face but Dean can see the creases at the corners of his eyes that means he's trying real hard not to laugh. There's a border of blue stars around them and it's a helluva far cry from _Bobby Singer, town drunk_. Dean's standing there with his mouth open, catching flies for god knows how long before he hears his Dad calling his name on the phone.

"Dad," he says, mouth dry. "Lemme call you back, ok? I love you." He hangs up without waiting for an answer, just drinking in the sight of Bobby, bigger than life and Dean'd kill to have him here, but... but he can still hear the echo of Karen's words, _you've never been in love, have you?_ No pity or blame in them and she was right. Sam and Bobby and he'd been the only family any of them had had.

He can barely breathe through the pain in his chest but he's as proud of Bobby looking at that sign as he's ever been. Dean sits down right in the dust, the heel of his hand pressed to his heart. He leans his head back against the payphone and closes his eyes for one long moment.

There's a dirt road under the billboard, little more than a horse trail, lined with improbably green trees despite the heat of the summer. It disappears into the murky distance, the leaves fluttering in a breeze that Dean can't feel against his face. He sighs, and climbs to his feet.

***

The road is too narrow for the Impala, so Dean walks. Even deep among the trees the sunlight is hot on his face. It smells like green grass and the oranges hanging heavy from the branches above his head. He reaches up to pull one down, the stem snapping easily as the orange rolls into his hand. Didn't even think oranges grew in South Dakota. He sinks grimy fingers into the skin to pull it apart, breathes in the bright smell. He wishes Sammy were here to share it with him.

The road is bumpy under his feet, pitching and rolling with gopher holes and hills. Dean brushes away a mosquito. He thinks about the possibility of a pond nearby, swampy and cool. He'd take off all his clothes and dive right in.

The road ends at a church. Dean can't say he's surprised.

It looks like a one room clapboard, victim maybe of the Depression. Abandoned too fast to even board up the windows, glass scattered across the clearing. Probably been decades since anyone's been out here, brittle weeds grown up past his knees to choke the foundations. He circles the building looking for the best way inside, his footsteps quiet in the grass even though nobody's around to hear. He picks his way carefully up the rotted steps to pry the door open, the wood splintering into pieces under his hands.

The inside of the church isn't much different since the outside came in, littered with glass and leaves. Vines crawling into the windows to sink into the empty frames. The place smells dry as a bone, shadowed for decades. Dean's grateful for that at least; mold always did creep him out. Paper scattered everywhere, words faded and unreadable. Dean's not interested in them anyway. The altar's the only thing that's left, and for one white-hot second he wants nothing more than to break it apart.

He breathes deeply, counts to ten. Anger never really got him anywhere, not then and not now. Dean stares up at the cross, the echo of his Dad's words in his head.

_Did you find what you were looking for?_

There are candles scattered across the altar, and Dean only realizes his hands are shaking when he pulls out his Bic. He digs out the grime from the candle with a fingernail and sets the wick to flame. Homesickness washes over him in waves, hits like a punch to the gut. Everything tangled together, not even sure anymore why he left Kansas, what good he thought it'd do to run away.

He's never been more sure that nobody's watching but he remembers lighting candles for the dead with Pastor Jim. He wonders who to light it for now. Figures it could be for everyone.

When it comes it's a breath of wind across his face, the other candles flickering into life alongside his own. Papers fluttering across the room. Dean lets out a long, slow breath; feels like he's been holding it in for years.

Castiel is on the other side of the altar, palms flat across the brittle cloth and close enough to touch. For a minute Dean can't trust it, breath caught in his throat; then Cas tilts his head to the side, that familiar twitch of a smile on his lips. Dean's not sure what the hell Cas is so happy about but he smiles back anyway for a second, relieved and pissed and somehow glad to see Cas too.

"Dean," he says, like that's an answer. Still sounds like he's been chainsmoking his whole life in small, windowless rooms. Still looks like he rolled off a park bench, tie loose in the hollow of his throat. Makes Dean wonder if Jimmy even got his new life.

Dean pulls out his flask with trembling hands, takes a long pull. He points it at Cas, shaking his head. "Y'know, I still wasn't a hundred percent sure I wasn't crazy until right now. You sure as shit took your time, didn't you?"

The smile dies on Castiel's face. He comes around the altar and Dean backs away. Cas just looks at him; his heart's pounding, almost forgot what it felt like to have those eyes on him. Like nothing else exists in the world. Dean lifts his chin, mulishly, and Castiel puts his hands up in surrender. Dean recognizes that guilty look on his face, like he got caught doing something he shouldn't. Cas sighs, his gaze sliding away from Dean.

"I'm not supposed to be here," he says, "My orders were... specific."

"What happened," Dean says, "Back there, what happened with the apocalypse? Why," he waves a hand at himself, seventeen years old and the only scars he has are from falling out of trees or skinning his knee, "Why am I still alive?" He takes a step closer, chin dipping to grab Castiel's eyes again.

Castiel's lips part. "You kept faith, Dean, in your ... insane, desperate way. We found God," he breathes, his eyes bright with emotion, "and God rewarded us."

Dean starts laughing. "With this?"

Castiel's voice is flat, disappointed when he answers. "Yes, Dean, with this. He wasn't interested in easy converts, He didn't give humans free will so they could not test Him with it. Everything, always, swung on you. One righteous man who held faith that your world deserved to live.

"It was God's Will that you should have a second chance. Look around you. No demons to torment humanity. No ghosts. Bobby Singer, unburdened of guilt. Ellen and Jo. _Sam_." His shoes scrape the ground when he comes to stand next to Dean, and this time Dean stays where he is. "You live a normal life with a family that loves you."

"I'm still a _freak_ , Cas," Dean snaps. "I'm the goddamn one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Y'know, I'm used to people leaving me but that's still a shit move on your part."

"If it matters," Castiel says slowly, "...you were never supposed to know."

Dean laughs, wipes away the sweat stinging his eyes. "That worked out real well, didn't it? I _always_ knew."

Castiel takes a breath, looking lost. "Tell me... tell me about your life, Dean."

Dean shrugs. "What's there to tell? I was born, I grew up. I'm actually finishing high school next year." He grins, all his teeth showing. "Teenage girls, man!"

Castiel says nothing and the smile slips off Dean's face. "Yeah, they're not as fun as they were the first time around. Can't lose my virginity. Can't... can't talk to people, sometimes. Always was something wrong with me." Castiel sways towards him, faintly. His lips press together in a thin line and he shakes his head.

"Well, what about you," Dean says roughly. "If life's so goddamn peachy what are you doing here? Why're you still stalking me? Coffee and a burger, medium rare, huh?" Castiel drops his eyes to the ground, his cheeks coloring.

Dean rubs the back of his head as the silence stretches out between them, the only sound the cicadas in the grass. The whole room hot as hell, no breeze through the broken windows. He throws his hands up in the air.

"Cas, what do you want from me?"

"For you to be happy, Dean," Cas says fiercely, leaning on his name. "Everything that I've sacrificed, everything that happened, has led you here, to this life.

"I can't undo His will," Castiel says sadly, and Dean gets it, suddenly. Remembers that drive to the ocean chasing Sammy's Greyhound across state lines. How Dean never called, never asked Sam for a thing because if he was happy than Dean...

Dean looks at Castiel and sees his Dad, laughing at the dinner table. Sees Sam with his nose buried in a book, that same crease furrowed in his forehead but young enough to still sound out difficult words. He sees his Mom, and she's beautiful.

He takes a last step and closes the distance between them. Dean slides a hand around the base of Castiel's skull, fingers tangling in his hair. Cas breathes out, slowly, closes heartbroken eyes. Dean's close enough to feel the heat from his skin. He kisses Cas, just a quick press of lips, a taste. He touches his forehead to Castiel's, listens to the beat of the angel's heart.

"Sammy wants to be a fireman when he grows up," Dean says softly. "Me, I think he's gonna be president."

***

Dean pulls into the driveway sometime after midnight, the neighborhood quiet and sleepy around him. He unlocks the door as quietly as he can and slips inside. Toes off his shoes and hangs up his jacket. He stretches, everything sore from so much time in the car. His back pops.

There's a blue light flickering in the living room; Dad fallen asleep in front of the TV again. Dean pulls a blanket over him and turns off the movie, the sudden darkness startling but he could find his way around this house blind. He pats his Dad's shoulder, careful not to wake him.

The kitchen smells good, like they'd had lasagna for dinner or something. He stands, eyes closed, just breathing it in. Funny how you never think about what home smells like but for him it's good food, a hint of motor oil, lemon-scented dish soap. He grabs a glass of cold water, and heads upstairs thinking of how good it's gonna be to sleep in a real bed.

Sam's light is still on. Dean knocks, quietly, and opens the door. The room's empty but the window's open, curtains fluttering in the night breeze. Dean sighs, puts his glass on the sill and climbs carefully out onto the roof. Never was crazy about heights.

Sam's out there, sitting leaned back against the siding with his knees up and chin in hand, lost in thought. Likes to come out here sometimes to be by himself, but it damn near gave Dean a heart attack the first time he found his little brother on the roof. Sam starts when he hears Dean coming, the guilty look at being out here turning into a grin big enough to split his face in half. "You're back!" he whispers happily, and he must've grown while Dean was gone because when Sammy tackles him into a hug it damn near squeezes the life out of him.

"How was your trip? Where'd you go? What'd you do? Why'd you leave?" Sam rushes out in one breath and Dean stops him with a hand, chuckling.

"Whoa, easy there, tiger."

"We missed you, Dean," Sam says. "I missed you, I mean."

Dean eases himself down onto the rough shingles, stretches his legs out. "And I'll tell you all about it in the morning, dude, but I'm too tired right now." Sam settles next to him, still pressed against Dean's shoulder. They watch the stars in silence and Dean yawns. "What're you doin' up so late, anyway?"

"Oh," Sam starts. Dean can see him blushing bright red in the light from his room. Sam stares at his toes for a minute. "It's stupid, Dean, you're gonna make fun of me."

"I promise I won't," Dean says, "Cross my heart and hope to die and all that good stuff."

Sam looks at him, quirks half a smile and says, breathlessly, "There's this girl in my class, Dean. I don't think she even knows I exist but..."

Dean laughs, honest and real, and he throws an arm around Sam's shoulders when he starts to get that pissy look on his face. He ruffles Sam's hair and yanks him into a hug. "Don't worry about it, Sammy," he says. "Everything's gonna be okay."


End file.
